Talk:Least significant bit

"In computing, the least significant bit (LSB) is the bit position in a binary number having the value of 1."

Not for a floating point number. Right? - Omegatron 19:01, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

Correct. Would the following be a better wording? "In computing, the least significant bit (LSB) is the bit position in a binary number having the integer value of 1." Would it be appropriate to mention floating point here? Or would that be too much of a diversion from the topic? Jimwilliams57 02:34, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

Transmission convention

Is the LSB transmitted first or the MSB? For instance, to transmit the decimal number 1, transmission could be either:
LSB first --> 10000000 --> High-Low-Low-Low-Low-Low-Low-Low
or
MSB first --> 00000001 --> Low-Low-Low-Low-Low-Low-Low-High Anwar (talk) 22:16, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

This question is related to Endianness. Network enddianness is usually big-endian, or MSB first. C xong (talk) 06:01, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

If Else Implementation

I don't know why would someone post the current implement with 7 if statements. You can easily implement a one-liner with n & ~(n - 1) for unsigned types.

It is commonly known that n & (n - 1) remove the least significant bit in an unsigned type. Using this, you can logically proof the one-liner I presented.

leastbit = n & ~(n & (n - 1));
// bring the ~ into the parenthesis. (Distributivity)
leastbit = n & (~n | ~(n - 1));
// distribute n into the parenthesis. (Distributivity)
leastbit = (n & ~n) | (n & ~(n - 1));
// n & ~n cancel out
leastbit = 0 | (n & ~(n - 1));
// ORing zero does nothing so it can be removed
leastbit = n & ~(n - 1);

--Voidvector (talk) 21:45, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

LSB or lsb ?

LSB (all capitals) is generally used to indicate least significant bit in many fields (such as data converters).

The acronym LSB, with the meaning of least significant bit, is defined in the authoritative IEC 60050 Electrotechnical Vocabulary (IEV number 723-10-12, [1]). This article, instead, encourages implicitly the use of lsb (and not LSB) to indicate least significant bit. This is wrong. Somewhere (such as [2]) the use of LSB with the meaning of least significant byte is indicated as rare.

The distinction between lsb and LSB made in this article in sensible. However, as a matter of fact, LSB is used with two different meanings, and this should be reflected clearly in the paper. --Adnadn (talk) 20:09, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Merge with Most significant bit ?

Should this article be merged with Most significant bit? Both articles refer to each other and explain the same topic ("bit positions in binary numbers"). The "Other uses" and "See also" paragraphs of each article are almost the same. -- Evilninja (talk) 23:28, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with this idea. Could you suggest an article name? I'll suggest either Significant bit or Most and least significant bit. +mt 21:29, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Significant bit sounds good to me, but leave redirects to each Most significant bit and Least significant bit. So, as I understand Wikipedia:Merging, first the pages have to be tagged and then only after a consensus has been found, the pages can be merged, right? -- Evilninja (talk) 22:16, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Yup, this is correct. Then add a new discussion after this one where more folks can weigh in. +mt 23:00, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

No, I think it's better to leave them separate. There is little to be gained from merging: maintenance for these is minimal and storage is not an issue. But there are losses in merging: the language of the article become uselessly complicated, for instance with constructs like "the least (or most) significant bit is the bit conventionally written at the right (or left) of the binary number" or equivalent complications. There's no reason to burden the article reader with wading through unneeded superfluous verbiage and having to sort it out just to pick up the concept that is new to them. Once a simple explanation for one of the two is understood, it's straightforward for the reader to understand the other. --R. S. Shaw (talk) 04:56, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

I was more thinking about merging the articles into Significant bit as separate paragraphs, so that the language would not have to be changed, so there would be no "the least (or most) significant..." parts. -- Evilninja (talk) 05:05, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

No, I made an addition to least significant bit regarding steganography and I feel it's significant enough to be it's own page. In cryptography and steganographic studies, understanding how LSB works is important for hiding information. I've seen references to LSB many times in cryptographic literature in a steganographic context, and I feel it should remain independent. CybFox (talk) 10:46, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Support. The two articles have overlapping content, and would read better as a single article (when rewritten). Another idea is to merge to a single article at bit numbering. +mt 06:58, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Support the alternative proposal to merge both to bit numbering, where this topic fits as a subset. Klbrain (talk) 22:18, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

That's an even better idea, I didn't know the bit numbering article. -- Evilninja (talk) 23:06, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

  Y Merger complete. Klbrain (talk) 15:44, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

The image about colors is all wrong.

The top number is not 238 base10. It's not +3 over base, but +2. The middle number is not 235. The bottom number is not -3 compared to the base.

CybFox (image maker) : What ended up happening was after adjusting the text box sizes to look nicer I accidentally clipped the last digit. As a result the the binary representation was very very, very wrong. Thanks for catching it, it's fixed now.

https://i.imgur.com/I7JpQ1q.png Image: I loaded the .ai file back up and I stretched the text box out, and behold, the missing bits were there.