Python’s in-place bitwise right-shift operator x >>= y
calculates the right-shift operation x >> y
, and assigns the result to the first operands variable name x
. You can set up the in-place right-shift behavior in your own class by overriding the magic “dunder” method __irshift__(self, other)
in your class definition.
>>> x = 8 >>> x >>= 2 >>> x 2
The expression x >>= y
is syntactical sugar for the longer-form x = x >> y
:
>>> x = 8 >>> x = x >> 2 >>> x 2
Let’s explore some examples on different data types of the operands.
Recap Bitwise Right-Shift
The Python bitwise right-shift operator x >> n
shifts the binary representation of integer x
by n
positions to the right. It inserts a 0
bit on the left and removes the right-most bit. For example, if you right-shift the binary representation 0101
by one position, you’d obtain 0010
. Semantically, the bitwise right-shift operator is the same as performing integer division by 2**n
.

Here’s a minimal example:
print(8 >> 1) # 4 print(8 >> 2) # 2 print(-3 >> 1) # -2
Here’s a short explainer video too:
Related. To learn more about the bitwise right-shift operator, and how it works on positive and negative integers, check out our related tutorial: > Operator”>Python Bitwise Right-Shift Operator
Incompatible Data Type
What if two operands have an incompatible data type—unlike floats and integers? For example, if you try to shift a float variable by a list variable (which doesn’t make sense)?
>>> x = 3.0 >>> y = [1, 2] >>> x >> y Traceback (most recent call last): File "<pyshell#5>", line 1, in <module> x >> y TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for >>: 'float' and 'list'
The result of incompatible addition is a TypeError
. You can fix it by using only compatible data types for the in-place bitwise right-shift operation.
Can you use the bitwise right-shift operator on custom objects? Yes!
Python In-Place Bitwise Right-Shift Magic Method
To use the in-place bitwise right-shift operator >>=
on custom objects, you need to define the __irshift__()
method (“dunder method”, “magic method”) that takes two arguments self
and other
, updates the first argument self
with the result of the operation, and returns the updated object.
In the following code, you combine two Data
objects using the in-place right-shift operation:
class Data: def __init__(self, data): self.data = data def __irshift__(self, other): self.data >>= other.data return self x = Data(8) y = Data(2) x >>= y print(x.data) # 2
You can see that the content of the first operand is updated as a result of the in-place bitwise right-shift operation.
Python In-Place Operators
In-place assignment operators (also called compound assignment operators) perform an operation in-place on a variable provided as first operand. They overwrite the value of the first operand variable with the result of the operation when performing the operator without assignment. For example, x += 3
is the same as x = x + 3
of first calculating the result of x +3
and then assigning it to the variable x.
Operator | Name | Short Example | Equivalent Long Example |
---|---|---|---|
= | In-place Assignment | x = 3 | |
+= | In-place Addition | x += 3 | x = x + 3 |
-= | In-place Subtraction | x -= 3 | x = x - 3 |
*= | In-place Multiplication | x *= 3 | x = x * 3 |
/= | In-place Division | x /= 3 | x = x / 3 |
%= | In-place Modulo | x %= 3 | x = x % 3 |
//= | In-place Integer Division | x //= 3 | x = x // 3 |
**= | In-place Power | x **= 3 | x = x ** 3 |
&= | In-place Bitwise And | x &= 3 | x = x & 3 |
|= | In-place Bitwise Or | x |= 3 | x = x | 3 |
^= | In-place Bitwise XOR | x ^= 3 | x = x ^ 3 |
>>= | In-place Bitwise Shift Right | x >>= 3 | x = x >> 3 |
<<= | In-place Bitwise Shift Left | x <<= 5 | x = x << 5 |

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