Arithmatic Shifting Vs division

[Dave1024]

Is it possible to do the division operation using left shift and right shift of bits when the divisor is not an exact power of 2

Thanks In Advance!

[monarch_dodra]

Is it possible to do the division operation using left shift and right shift of bits when the divisor is not an exact power of 2

Thanks In Advance!

Yes.
As a matter of fact, it is how a standard division is done by hand.
http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs1104/BuildingBlocks/divide.030.html

On a side note, it is NOT something you want to do in real world code. Even if your divisor is 2, I wouldn't suggest shift division. It is not 100% portable and is error prone (what happens if your number is negative, or odd, or both? Or if it is a floating point type number?)

Use standard division and let c++, your compiler and your processor worry about that crap. They can optimize 10 this stuff ten times better than you ever will. You can never go wrong, and your code will be fully optimized AND error free.

[ninja9578]

I would bet that your compiler will do that for you when doing optimizations.