Check if ith bit is set in a 32 bit integer

Problem

Given a 32-bit integer num, determine whether the i-th bit (counting from 0 at the least-significant bit) is set (i.e., equals 1).

Follow up

Can you check if a target bit is set without affecting other bits?

Examples

Example 1

Input: num = 20, i = 2
Output: true
Explanation: 20 = 10100₂; bit at index 2 is 1.

Example 2

Input: num = 20, i = 3
Output: false
Explanation: 20 = 10100₂; bit at index 3 is 0.

Solution

We can test the ith bit with a mask that has only that bit set: 1 << i. Bitwise AND with num preserves that bit; a non-zero result means the bit is set.

Method 1 – Bit Mask Check

Intuition

Create a mask = 1 << i which has only the ith bit set. num & mask will be non-zero iff num's ith bit is 1.

Approach

• Validate input: i should be non-negative and less than the integer width (implementation-dependent).
• Compute mask = 1 << i.
• Return (num & mask) != 0.

Edge cases

• If i is out of range for the integer type, use a wider type (e.g., 64-bit) or return false/raise an error depending on requirements.
• Negative num (two's complement) is fine — the bitwise test still inspects the bit pattern.

Note

This already answers the follow up as well, as we don't modify the input number.

Code

C++

class Solution {
 public:
  bool isNthBitSet(unsigned int num, unsigned int i) {
    if (i >= sizeof(num) * 8) return false;
    unsigned int mask = 1u << i;
    return (num & mask) != 0u;
  }
};

Go

package main

func isNthBitSet(num uint, i uint) bool {
  mask := uint(1) << i
  return (num & mask) != 0
}

Java

class Solution {
  public boolean isNthBitSet(int num, int i) {
    if (i < 0 || i >= Integer.SIZE) return false;
    int mask = 1 << i;
    return (num & mask) != 0;
  }
}

Python

class Solution:
  def is_nth_bit_set(self, num: int, i: int) -> bool:
    if i < 0:
      return False
    mask: int = 1 << i
    return (num & mask) != 0

Complexity

• ⏰ Time complexity: O(1), a constant number of bit operations.
• 🧺 Space complexity: O(1), constant extra space for the mask.