While reading some documentation here, I came across this:

unsigned unitFlags = NSYearCalendarUnit | NSMonthCalendarUnit |  NSDayCalendarUnit;
NSDateComponents *comps = [gregorian components:unitFlags fromDate:date];

I have no idea how this works. I read up on the bitwise operators in C, but I do not understand how you can fit three (or more!) constants inside one int and later being able to somehow extract them back from the int? Digging further down the documentation, I also found this, which is probably related:

typedef enum {
   kCFCalendarUnitEra = (1 << 1),
   kCFCalendarUnitYear = (1 << 2),
   kCFCalendarUnitMonth = (1 << 3),
   kCFCalendarUnitDay = (1 << 4),
   kCFCalendarUnitHour = (1 << 5),
   kCFCalendarUnitMinute = (1 << 6),
   kCFCalendarUnitSecond = (1 << 7),
   kCFCalendarUnitWeek = (1 << 8),
   kCFCalendarUnitWeekday = (1 << 9),
   kCFCalendarUnitWeekdayOrdinal = (1 << 10),
} CFCalendarUnit;

How do the (1 << 3) statements / variables work? I'm sorry if this is trivial, but could someone please enlighten me by either explaining or maybe posting a link to a good explanation?

Thanks!

-- ry