我见过它们在基于角色的访问控制系统中使用。

Base64编码就是一个例子。Base64编码用于将二进制数据表示为通过电子邮件系统(和其他目的)发送的可打印字符。Base64编码将一系列8位字节转换为6位字符查找索引。位操作，移位，'ing， 'ing, not'ing对于实现Base64编码和解码所需的位操作非常有用。

当然，这只是无数例子中的一个。

Bit fields (flags) They're the most efficient way of representing something whose state is defined by several "yes or no" properties. ACLs are a good example; if you have let's say 4 discrete permissions (read, write, execute, change policy), it's better to store this in 1 byte rather than waste 4. These can be mapped to enumeration types in many languages for added convenience. Communication over ports/sockets Always involves checksums, parity, stop bits, flow control algorithms, and so on, which usually depend on the logic values of individual bytes as opposed to numeric values, since the medium may only be capable of transmitting one bit at a time. Compression, Encryption Both of these are heavily dependent on bitwise algorithms. Look at the deflate algorithm for an example - everything is in bits, not bytes. Finite State Machines I'm speaking primarily of the kind embedded in some piece of hardware, although they can be found in software too. These are combinatorial in nature - they might literally be getting "compiled" down to a bunch of logic gates, so they have to be expressed as AND, OR, NOT, etc. Graphics There's hardly enough space here to get into every area where these operators are used in graphics programming. XOR (or ^) is particularly interesting here because applying the same input a second time will undo the first. Older GUIs used to rely on this for selection highlighting and other overlays, in order to eliminate the need for costly redraws. They're still useful in slow graphics protocols (i.e. remote desktop).

这些只是我最先想到的几个例子——这不是一个详尽的清单。

低级编程就是一个很好的例子。例如，你可能需要写一个特定的位到内存映射寄存器，以使某些硬件做你想要它做的事情:

volatile uint32_t *register = (volatile uint32_t *)0x87000000;
uint32_t          value;
uint32_t          set_bit   = 0x00010000;
uint32_t          clear_bit = 0x00001000;

value = *register;            // get current value from the register
value = value & ~clear_bit;   // clear a bit
value = value | set_bit;      // set a bit
*register = value;            // write it back to the register

同样，htonl()和htons()是使用&和|操作符实现的(在字节顺序不匹配网络顺序的机器上):

#define htons(a) ((((a) & 0xff00) >> 8) | \
                  (((a) & 0x00ff) << 8))

#define htonl(a) ((((a) & 0xff000000) >> 24) | \
                  (((a) & 0x00ff0000) >>  8) | \
                  (((a) & 0x0000ff00) <<  8) | \
                  (((a) & 0x000000ff) << 24))

当我有一堆布尔标记时，我喜欢将它们全部存储在一个整型中。

我用bitwise-AND取出它们。例如:

int flags;
if (flags & 0x10) {
  // Turn this feature on.
}

if (flags & 0x08) {
  // Turn a second feature on.
}

etc.

我经常使用位操作将选项的组合存储在一个整数中。

int options = 0;

其中OPTION1可以定义为1,OPTION2定义为2,OPTION3定义为4,OPTION4定义为8,OPTION5定义为16，…

void addOption(int option)将使用|操作符向options中添加一个选项。

boolean hasOption(int option)将使用&操作符来测试选项中的选项。