Question

What’s an efficient or syntactically simple way to get and set the high order part of an integer?

Answer 1

It’s the same as in C/C++:

// get the high order 16 bits
int high = 0x12345678 >> 16; // high = 0x1234
// set the high order 16 bits
high = (high & 0x0000FFFF) + (0x5678 << 16); // high = 0x56781234

EDIT: Because I’m in a good mood, here you go. Just remember, immutable types are immutable! The ‘set’ functions need to be assigned to something.

public static class ExtensionMethods
{
    public int LowWord(this int number)
    { return number & 0x0000FFFF; }
    public int LowWord(this int number, int newValue)
    { return (number & 0xFFFF0000) + (newValue & 0x0000FFFF); }
    public int HighWord(this int number)
    { return number & 0xFFFF0000; }
    public int HighWord(this int number, int newValue)
    { return (number & 0x0000FFFF) + (newValue << 16); }
}

EDIT 2: On second thoughts, if you really need to do this and don’t want the syntax everywhere, use Michael’s solution. +1 to him for showing me something new.