Type classification: this is a lesson resource.

Welcome! This is a lesson in the Introductory Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science course here at Wikiversity.

Previous lesson: Logical OR

Introducing the Exclusive OR!

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  : This is the XOR operator. It is also called the exclusive OR, to distinguish it from the inclusive OR of the previous lesson. Like the inclusive OR, it is a dyadic operator; unlike any other operator, it is true when one and only one input is true.

Let   represent the statement: It is raining.
Let   represent the statement: I am hungry.
  represents the exclusive disjunction of statements   and  : It is raining OR I am hungry, But not both.

Truth Table

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Its truth table is unique. Here it is!

     
T T F
T F T
F T T
F F F

Why XOR is Special

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XOR is used for adding binary numbers, and is the fundamental arithmetic operation used by computers.

Next Lesson

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Your next lesson is called Conditional Operator.