GATE CS 2014 Set 2 — Question 20
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Programming & Data Structures → C Programming → Control Flow
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Question
Consider the function The value returned by
func shown below:int func(int num) {
int count = 0;
while (num) {
count++;
num>>= 1;
}
return (count);
}
func(435) is __________.Correct answer
9 to 9
Solution
The function
in binary:
The binary representation has 9 bits. The loop will execute once for each bit position until the number becomes 0.Iteration 1: num becomes (count = 1)
Iteration 2: num becomes (count = 2)
...
Iteration 9: num becomes (count = 9)The loop terminates. The returned value is 9.
func counts the number of times the loop executes. Inside the loop, num is right-shifted by 1 (num >>= 1) in each iteration. The loop continues as long as num is non-zero. This effectively calculates the number of bits required to represent the number num up to its most significant bit (MSB), or simply the position of the MSB plus one (1-based index).Let's analyze num = 435:in binary:
The binary representation has 9 bits. The loop will execute once for each bit position until the number becomes 0.Iteration 1: num becomes (count = 1)
Iteration 2: num becomes (count = 2)
...
Iteration 9: num becomes (count = 9)The loop terminates. The returned value is 9.
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