BITXOR

Finds the bitwise ‘XOR’ value of two numbers and returns it.

Syntax:

BITXOR(numberOne, numberTwo)

numberOne and numberTwo should be 0 or higher.

Example:

If numberOne contains 1 and numberTwo contains 2:

BITXOR(1, 2)

returns 3

numberOne:

numberTwo:

Result:

3

Application:

Simple Data Obfuscation

Imagine you have a small, sensitive piece of data, such as a user's ID, that you want to store in a way that isn't immediately readable to someone who might accidentally view the database. You can use a bitwise XOR operation with a fixed "key" to scramble the data. The beauty of the XOR operation is that applying it a second time with the same key will unscramble the data back to its original form.

The Key: Let's use the number 10 as our key. In binary, 10 is 1010.

The Data: Let's say we have a user ID of 5. In binary, 5 is 0101.

Step 1: Obfuscation (Scrambling the Data)

We apply the BITXOR function to the data and the key.

BITXOR(Data, Key) -> BITXOR(5, 10)

Let's do the math in binary:

Data (5): 0101
Key (10): 1010
Result: 1111

The bitwise XOR operation works like this:

0 XOR 0 = 0
0 XOR 1 = 1
1 XOR 0 = 1
1 XOR 1 = 0

	Bit Position	Data (5)	Key (10)	Result (XOR)
	A	B	C	D
1	1's place	1	0	1
2	2's place	0	1	1
3	4's place	1	0	1
4	8's place	0	1	1

The resulting binary 1111 is the decimal number 15. This is the scrambled value that would be stored in the database.

Step 2: De-obfuscation (Unscrambling the Data)

When the application needs to retrieve the original user ID, it performs the exact same operation with the same key.

BITXOR(Scrambled_Data, Key) -> BITXOR(15, 10)

Let's do the math in binary again:

Scrambled Data (15): 1111
Key (10): 1010
Result: 0101

	Bit Position	Scrambled Data (15)	Key (10)	Result (XOR)
	A	B	C	D
1	1's place	1	0	1
2	2's place	1	1	0
3	4's place	1	0	1
4	8's place	1	1	0

The resulting binary 0101 is the decimal number 5, which is our original user ID.

This simple example demonstrates how the BITXOR function can be used for a reversible, lightweight data transformation, making it a useful tool for basic data security and integrity tasks.