Question

I have a 5 bit integer that I’m working with. Is there a native function in Objective-C that will let me know which bit is the leftmost?

i.e. I have 01001, it would return 8 or the position.

Answer 1

NSInteger value = 9;
NSInteger shift = 1;
for(NSInteger bit = value; bit > 1; bit = value >> ++shift);
NSInteger leftmostbit = 1 << shift;

Works for every number of bits.