GoLang: Compute the Hamming Distance

The Hamming distance between two integers is the number of positions at which the corresponding bits are different. Given two integers x and y, return the Hamming distance between them.

Example 1:
Input: x = 1, y = 4
Output: 2

Explanation:

1   (0 0 0 1)
4   (0 1 0 0)
       ↑   ↑

The above arrows point to positions where the corresponding bits are different.

Example 2:
Input: x = 3, y = 1
Output: 1

0 <= x, y <= pow(2, 31) – 1

Hamming Distance in GoLang

XOR operation is same as other languages which uses ^ symbol. The Golang uses “for” keyword for a “while” loop. And the x&=x-1 removes the rightmost set bit.

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func hammingDistance(x int, y int) int {
    x ^= y
    var ans = 0
    for x > 0 {
        ans += 1
        x &= x - 1
    }
    return ans
}

func hammingDistance(x int, y int) int {
    x ^= y
    var ans = 0
    for x > 0 {
        ans += 1
        x &= x - 1
    }
    return ans
}

Hamming Weight / Hamming Distance Algorithms

Here are the posts related to Hamming Distance (XOR, The number of different bits):

• A faster approach to count set bits in a 32-bit integer
• Teaching Kids Programming – Minimum Bit Flips to Convert Number (Hamming Distance)
• GoLang: Compute the Hamming Distance
• How to Sort List by Hamming Weight in C++?
• Teaching Kids Programming – Compute the Hamming Distance of Two Integers
• Compute the Total Hamming Distance between All Pairs of Integers
• The Hamming Distance Implementation in Javascript
• Hamming Distance between Two Integers
• Compute Number of 1’s Bits in C/C++
• Teaching Kids Programming – Sort List by Hamming Weight

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