[SOLVED] How to perform bitwise operations on hexadecimal numbers in bash?

Issue

In my bash script I have a string containing a hexadecimal number, e.g. hex="0x12345678". Is it possible to treat it as a hex number and do bit shifting on it?

Solution

You can easily bitshift such numbers in an arithmetic context:

$ hex="0x12345678"
$ result=$((hex << 1))
$ printf "Result in hex notation: 0x%x\n" "$result"
0x2468acf0

Answered By - that other guy