Issue #20163 has been updated by ahorek (Pavel Rosický). x64 and ARM have specialized CPU instructions https://godbolt.org/z/xvGvzsvd9 and Ruby already uses it internally, for instance https://github.com/ruby/ruby/blob/dc555a48e750b4d50eb7a7000ca1bfb927fa9459/s... That said, Ruby isn’t the ideal choice for implementing memory allocators, SIMD masks, parity checks, GCD calculations, UTF parsers, or prime sieving… but since many other languages, even Python, provide support for popcount, why not? ---------------------------------------- Feature #20163: Introduce #bit_count method on Integer https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/20163#change-114448 * Author: garrison (Garrison Jensen) * Status: Open ---------------------------------------- This feature request is to implement a method called #bit_count on Integer that returns the number of ones in the binary representation of the absolute value of the integer. ``` n = 19 n.bit_count #=> 3 (-n).bit_count #=> 3 ``` This is often useful when you use an integer as a bitmask and want to count how many bits are set. This would be equivalent to ``` n.to_s(2).count("1") ``` However, this can be outperformed by ``` def bit_count(n) count = 0 while n > 0 n &= n - 1 # Flip the least significant 1 bit to 0 count += 1 end count end ``` I think this would be a useful addition because it would fit alongside the other bit-related methods defined on integer: `#bit_length,` `#allbits?`, `#anybits?`, `#nobits?`. Also, when working with bitmasks, a minor upgrade to performance often results in a significant improvement. Similar methods from other languages: https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#int.bit_count https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/primitive.i32.html#method.count_ones -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/