What does |= (single pipe equal) and &=(single ampersand equal) mean

Question

In below lines:

//Folder.Attributes = FileAttributes.Directory | FileAttributes.Hidden | FileAttributes.System | FileAttributes.ReadOnly;
Folder.Attributes |= FileAttributes.Directory | FileAttributes.Hidden | FileAttributes.System | FileAttributes.ReadOnly;


Folder.Attributes |= ~FileAttributes.System;
Folder.Attributes &= ~FileAttributes.System;

What does |= (single pipe equal) and &= (single ampersand equal) mean in C#?

I want to remove system attribute with keeping the others...

Answer 1

They're compound assignment operators, translating (very loosely)

x |= y;

into

x = x | y;

and the same for &. There's a bit more detail in a few cases regarding an implicit cast, and the target variable is only evaluated once, but that's basically the gist of it.

In terms of the non-compound operators, & is a bitwise "AND" and | is a bitwise "OR".

EDIT: In this case you want Folder.Attributes &= ~FileAttributes.System. To understand why:

• ~FileAttributes.System means "all attributes except System" (~ is a bitwise-NOT)
• & means "the result is all the attributes which occur on both sides of the operand"

So it's basically acting as a mask - only retain those attributes which appear in ("everything except System"). In general:

• |= will only ever add bits to the target
• &= will only ever remove bits from the target