Problem1

The Problem:

Presented with the integer n, find the 0-based position of the second rightmost zero bit in its binary representation (it is guaranteed that such a bit exists), counting from right to left.

Return the value of 2position_name_of_the_found_bit.

Example
For n = 37, the output should be secondRightmostZeroBit(n)= 8.

3710 = 1001012. The second rightmost zero bit is at position 3 (0-based) from the right in the binary representation of n.

Thus, the answer is 23 = 8.

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Input/Output

• [time limit] 4000ms (py)
• [input] integer n Constraints:
  4 ≤ n ≤ 230.
• [output] integer

The Solution:

int secondRightmostZeroBit(int n) {  return -~((n-~(n^(n+1))/2)^(n-~(n^(n+1))/2+1))/2 ;}

The Explanation:

To find second rightmost zero bit, we first need to find the first one. (in other words, Least significant zero bit).

How to…

Let’s look at the alternatives that we can use.

3710=1001012

3810=1001102

^(3710)=0110102

If we use XOR between our number N and (N+1), we get
3710 XOR 3810= 0000112.

This looks good. If we get the complement of this.

−0001002 This is almost what we need. But it gives the next bit rather than what we want.

We can divide it by two to shift it (or use >> operator to shift it one bit.)

what we have is XOR and then a complement operation, namely, XNOR. (We don’t have XNOR, so we need to produce it ourselves.

a XNOR b = ~(a ^ b)

Now,

We found our first zero. What do we do to find second?

If we sum up our original number with this result, we get rid of first zero. (note the complement operation makes the number negative, so we need to subtract it instead of summation.

n-~(n^(n+1))/2

this is equal to 1001112

Now, if we do the same thing operation with this new number, we get our result.

CodeFights limits us to write it as one return statement. So, it looks more complicated.

But if we assign this to a new variable x.

We have

-~(x^(x+1))/2

As our answer.

Otherwise, just type it twice and get the result.

Note that this time we don’t subtract it from X. Because we only need the number, we don’t need to get rid of the zero.