Editing Bit array (section)

{{Short description|Array data structure that compactly stores bits}}
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A '''bit array''' (also known as '''bitmask''',<ref name="linux" />  '''bit map''', '''bit set''', '''bit string''', or '''bit vector''') is an [[array data structure]] that compactly stores [[bit]]s. It can be used to implement a simple [[set data structure]]. A bit array is effective at exploiting [[bit-level parallelism]] in hardware to perform operations quickly. A typical bit array stores ''kw'' bits, where ''w'' is the number of bits in the unit of storage, such as a [[byte]] or [[Word (computer architecture)|word]], and ''k'' is some nonnegative integer. If ''w'' does not divide the number of bits to be stored, some space is wasted due to [[Fragmentation (computing)|internal fragmentation]].