I've read this (http://stackoverflow.com/quest...), so I know what bitwise operators are but I'm still not clear on how one might use them... Can anyone offer any real-world examples of where a bitwise operator would be useful in JavaScript?

Thanks.

Edit:

Just digging into the jQuery source I've found a couple of places where bitwise operators are used, for example: (only the & operator)

// Line 2756:
event.which = (event.button & 1 ? 1 : ( event.button & 2 ? 3 : ( event.button & 4 ? 2 : 0 ) ));

// Line 2101
var ret = a.compareDocumentPosition(b) & 4 ? -1 : a === b ? 0 : 1;