if statement operator "&"

[CuddleBunniezzz12]

Hi, I was working on chapter 11 of "C++ A Beginners guide, 2nd ed.", and in one of the examples (with working on the IO streams's flags), I came across this if statement:

f = cout.flags();

if (f & ios::showpos)
    cout << "showpos is set for cout.\n";
else
    cout << "showpos is cleared for cout.\n";

I want to know what that "&" is doing in the start of the if statement. Doesn't that mean it's trying to get the reference of something?

[tummychow]

It's bitwise &. In this case it combines flags. You can check out the specifics in the documentation on this website.

[Bazzy]

Bitwise and (&) is like logical and (&&) the difference is that it performs the operation to each pair of bits
eg: ( random bit pattern )

01100101 &
00110110  
00100100