Get busy this weekend, with OR XOR AND [Excel Homework]

Some of you have heard my neighbor’s dog bark in a video or two that I recorded. While I was busy explaining how to do something awesome in Excel, this dog would decide to bark, adding her own two cents to the lesson. Quite a few of my VBA class students have grown used to it. So much that they complain when a lesson doesn’t have a couple of woofs. But I digress.

So coming back, one of the dogs (probably stray) has decided that she should bring her infant puppies and hide them under our terrace stair case. So, now we have 2 cute little puppies barking day long (and very late in to the night) just outside my office window. We have tried hard to get rid of them, but they somehow sneak back in and start barking or crying. So, I will be busy this weekend trying to move them out.

But that doesn’t mean, you have to live Excel-less for a few days. So I have a homework.

OR XOR AND, Get busy this weekend!

Don’t worry. I am not speaking elvish or something. OR, XOR & AND stand for bit-wise operations.

Binary?!? What binary?

As the saying goes, “There are 10 types of people in this world. Those who understand binary and those who don’t.”

If you understand the quotation, then you probably know what bit-wise operations are. If not, then I guess you were too busy during high-school math lessons.

We are pretty comfortable dealing with regular numbers, those that have base 10.

Binary numbers are in base 2. That means, everything is a zero or one. So 5 becomes 101 (that is 1x22+0x21+1x20 = 5)

So what are bit-wise operations?

Just as you have plus, minus, multiplication etc. there are few operations in binary world. See this illustration to understand what some of the basic bit-wise operations mean:

What is the homework then?

Very simple, assuming 2 cells A1 & A2 have binary numbers in them,

What formulas you would write to produce the AND, OR & XOR of the numbers?

Notes:

• How would you write formulas if your numbers are less than 512?
• How would you write if the numbers are less than 65536?
• What would you do if the numbers are very very large?

Go ahead and post your answers

This is no ordinary exercise. But probably it will be easier than getting unwanted puppies out of your house. So go ahead and give this a try. And post your answers using comments. I am waiting.

Some Tips

• Comment by Cameron & subsequent discussion on how to convert binary numbers to decimal
• Chandoo.org Forum question on ANDing Binary numbers
• 5 AND 3 is 1 by Daniel on Excel Hero
• Testing for Either-Or condition in Excel
• And oh yea, before I forget, never feed an unwanted puppy. If it becomes loyal to you, then are you in for trouble.

That is all. I wish you a pleasant weekend then. Mine is going to be noisy for sure.