bit bashing

(Also "bit diddling" or bit twiddling). Any of several

kinds of low-level programming characterised by manipulation

of bit, flag, nibble, and other

smaller-than-character-sized pieces of data. These include

low-level device control, encryption algorithms, checksum and

error-correcting codes, hash functions, some flavours of

graphics programming (see bitblt), and assembler/compiler

code generation. May connote either tedium or a real

technical challenge (more usually the former). "The command

decoding for the new tape driver looks pretty solid but the

bit-bashing for the control registers still has bugs." See

also bit bang, mode bit.