Calculate bit flips for random integers, an adventure in Python's bitwise operators

bit_flipper.py

#!/usr/bin/env python3
import sys

if len(sys.argv) != 2:
        print("Usage: %s <number>" % sys.argv[0])
        sys.exit(1)

def flip_bit(number, n):
  mask = (0b1 << (n-1))
  result = number ^ mask
  return bin(result)

to_flip = int(sys.argv[1])
print("Finding bit flips for:")
print("%s - %s" % (bin(to_flip), to_flip))

length = len(bin(to_flip)) - 2

print("Bit flips:")
for n in range(1, length):
    flipped = flip_bit(to_flip, n)
    print("%s - %s" % (flipped, int(flipped, 2)))

# $ ./bit_flips.py 22
# Finding bit flips for:
# 0b10110 - 22
# Bit flips:
# 0b10111 - 23
# 0b10100 - 20
# 0b10010 - 18
# 0b11110 - 30

# $ ./bit_flips.py 80
# Finding bit flips for:
# 0b1010000 - 80
# Bit flips:
# 0b1010001 - 81
# 0b1010010 - 82
# 0b1010100 - 84
# 0b1011000 - 88
# 0b1000000 - 64
# 0b1110000 - 112

# $ ./bit_flips.py 443
# Finding bit flips for:
# 0b110111011 - 443
# Bit flips:
# 0b110111010 - 442
# 0b110111001 - 441
# 0b110111111 - 447
# 0b110110011 - 435
# 0b110101011 - 427
# 0b110011011 - 411
# 0b111111011 - 507
# 0b100111011 - 315