Reply To: Could shift instructions be replaced by bit field instructions?

On ARM64 and PPC, all the different bitfield operations are implemented by only a couple instructions that perform a rotation and then a bitwise-select using a constructed mask. The rotation amount and bit-range of the mask define whether it is an extraction or injection.

Without dedicated bitfield instructions, extraction, and injection into zero can be done with two shifts: first to the top and then down.
What’s missing is a quick and easy way to bitwise-select a shifted value (or zero) into an existing bitfield.
The Wiki mentions a “Merge” instruction that performs bitwise select but you would first have to construct the mask.