bits(1) — Linux manual page

NAME \| SYNOPSIS \| DESCRIPTION \| POSITIONAL ARGUMENTS \| OPTIONS \| CONVERSION MODE \| EXAMPLES \| AUTHORS \| REPORTING BUGS \| AVAILABILITY

BITS(1)                       User Commands                       BITS(1)

NAME top

       bits - convert bit masks or lists from/to various formats

SYNOPSIS top

       bits [-h] [-V] [-w number] [mode] [mask|list]...

DESCRIPTION top

       The bits utility converts between bit masks and bit lists. It
       supports combining multiple masks or lists using bitwise
       operations.

POSITIONAL ARGUMENTS top

       mask
           A set of bits specified as a hexadecimal mask value (for
           example: 0xeec2).

       list
           A set of bits specified as a comma-separated list of bit IDs
           (for example: 1,5,29,32).

       If no argument is specified, the sets of bits will be read from
       standard input, one group per line.

       Consecutive IDs can be compressed as ranges (for example:
       5,6,7,8,9,10 → 5-10).

       Optionally, if an argument starts with a comma, it will be parsed
       as a single hexadecimal mask split in 32-bit groups (for example:
       ,00014000,00000000,00020000 → 17,78,80).

       By default, all groups will be OR’ed together. If a group has one
       of the prefixes &, ^, or ~, it will be combined with the resulting
       mask using a different binary operation:

       &mask|&list
           The group will be combined with a binary AND operation. That
           is: all bits that are set to 1 in the group AND in the
           combined groups so far will be preserved as 1. All other bits
           will be reset to 0.

       ^mask|^list
           The group will be combined with a binary XOR operation. That
           is: all bits that are set to 1 in the group AND to 0 in the
           combined groups so far (or the other way around) will be set
           to 1. Bits that are set both to 1 or both to 0 will be reset
           to 0.

       ~mask|~list
           All bits set to 1 in the group will be cleared (reset to 0) in
           the combined groups so far.

OPTIONS top

       -w number, --width number
           The maximum number of bits in the masks handled by bits. The
           default is 8192. Any bit larger than this number will be
           truncated.

       -h, --help
           Display help text and exit.

       -V, --version
           Display version and exit.

CONVERSION MODE top

       One of the following conversion modes can be specified. If not
       specified, it defaults to -m, --mask.

       -b, --binary
           Print the combined arguments as a binary mask value.

       -g, --grouped-mask
           Print the combined arguments as a hexadecimal mask value in
           32-bit comma-separated groups.

       -l, --list
           Print the combined arguments as a list of bit IDs. Consecutive
           IDs are compressed to ranges.

       -m, --mask
           Print the combined arguments as a hexadecimal mask value
           (default).

EXAMPLES top

           ~$ bits --mask 4,5-8 16,30
           0x400101f0

           ~$ bits --list 0xeec2
           1,6,7,9-11,13-15

           ~$ bits --binary 4,5-8 16,30
           0b100_0000_0000_0001_0000_0001_1111_0000

           ~$ bits --list ,00300000,03000000,30000003
           0,1,28,29,56,57,84,85

           ~$ bits --list 1,2,3,4 ~3-10
           1,2

           ~$ bits --list 1,2,3,4 ^3-10
           1,2,5-10

           ~$ bits --grouped-mask 2,22,74,79
           8400,00000000,00400004

           ~$ bits --width 64 --list 2,22,74,79
           2,22

AUTHORS top

       Robin Jarry.

REPORTING BUGS top

       For bug reports, use the issue tracker
       <https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues>.

AVAILABILITY top

       The bits command is part of the util-linux package which can be
       downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive
       <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>. This page is
       part of the util-linux (a random collection of Linux utilities)
       project. Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/⟩. If you have a
       bug report for this manual page, send it to
       util-linux@vger.kernel.org. This page was obtained from the
       project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/util-linux/util-linux.git⟩ on
       2025-08-11. (At that time, the date of the most recent commit that
       was found in the repository was 2025-08-05.) If you discover any
       rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you
       believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page,
       or you have corrections or improvements to the information in this
       COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page), send a
       mail to man-pages@man7.org

util-linux 2.42-start-521-ec46  2025-08-09                        BITS(1)