Left Shift

The left shift operator is <<. The left shift operator shifts all bits in a number to the left by the number of positions.

2 (10 in binary) shifted 5 bits to the left is 64 (1000000 in binary).

 
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Example</title>
    <script type="text/javascript">
    
        var oldValue = 2; //equal to binary 10 
        var newValue = oldValue << 5; //equal to binary 1000000 which is decimal 64 
        document.writeln(newValue);// 64
       
    </script>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>

Click to view the demo

The left shift operator preserves the sign of the number. For instance, if -2 is shifted to the left by five spaces, it becomes -64, not positive 64.