The BITLSHIFT function shifts the bits of the input a certain number of places to the left. Bits on the right are filled with zeroes (0s).
Parts of a BITLSHIFT function
BITLSHIFT(value,shift_amount)
| Part | Description | Notes |
value
|
The number to be shifted. | Must be a non-negative number. |
shift_amount
|
The number of places to shift. | Must be a value between -53 and 53, inclusive. Supplying a negative value will effectively be a BITRSHIFT. |
Sample formulas
BITLSHIFT(9, 2)
BITLSHIFT(A2, 4)
Notes
- Values don't necessarily have to be numbers.
- Values may be coerced. For example, a string value of “3” can be coerced to be simply 3 and a boolean value of TRUE can be coerced to 1.
Examples
In this example, we use BITLSHIFT with values inlined into the function. The value 2 (represented as 10 in base 2) has its bits shifted left by the shift_amount of 2, resulting in 8 (represented as 1000 in base 2).
| A | B | |
|---|---|---|
|
1
|
Formula | Result |
|
2
|
=BITLSHIFT(2,2)
|
8 |
Similar to the last example, a value of 2 being shifted by 2 results in a BITLSHIFT of 8. However, in this example, we use cell references to grab our values.
| A | B | C | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1
|
Formula | Result | Reference cells |
|
2
|
=BITLSHIFT(C2,C3)
|
8 | 2 |
Related functions
BITRSHIFT: The BITRSHIFT function shifts the bits of the input a certain number of places to the right. Bits on the left are filled with zeroes (0s).

