expression ^ expression  

The bitwise exclusive OR operator (^) compares each bit of its first operand to the corresponding bit of its second operand. If one bit is 0 and the other bit is 1, the corresponding result bit is set to 1. Otherwise, the corresponding result bit is set to 0.

Both operands to the bitwise exclusive OR operator must be of integral types. The usual arithmetic conversions covered in Standard Conversions are applied to the operands.

The xor operator is the text equivalent of ^. There are two ways to access the xor operator in your programs: include the header file iso646.h, or compile with the /Za (Disable language extensions) compiler option.

// expre_Bitwise_Exclusive_OR_Operator.cpp  
// compile with: /EHsc  
// Demonstrate bitwise exclusive OR  
#include <iostream>  
using namespace std;  
int main() {  
   unsigned short a = 0x5555;      // pattern 0101 ...  
   unsigned short b = 0xFFFF;      // pattern 1111 ...  
  
   cout  << hex << ( a ^ b ) << endl;   // prints "aaaa" pattern 1010 ...  
}  

C++ Built-in Operators, Precedence and Associativity