Logical shift

A logical shift is often used when its operand is being treated as a sequence of bits instead of as a number.

Logical shifts can be useful as efficient ways to perform multiplication or division of unsigned integers by powers of two.

Shifting left by n bits on a signed or unsigned binary number has the effect of multiplying it by 2n.

Shifting right by n bits on an unsigned binary number has the effect of dividing it by 2n (rounding towards 0).

In particular, C++ uses its logical shift operators as part of the syntax of its input and output functions, called "cin" and "cout" respectively.