C# Bitwise AND WTF

using System;

namespace BitwiseAndWTF
{
    class MainClass
    {
        public static void Main (string[] args)
        {
            byte b1 = 0x01;
            byte b2 = 0x02;
            byte b3 = b1 & b2;
        }
    }
}

The above program WILL NOT COMPILE. Why not? Because b3 is of type byte, and you can't assign it the value of an int. That's right. A bitwise AND on two bytes gives you an int.

Why does this happen? I don't know, but I can guess. Section 14.10.1 of the C# specification suggests that the bitwise operators are only defined for int, uint, long, and ulong. Presumably, the byte variables are being automatically promoted to int. Thus, the result is an int.

Bonus WTF: byte is unsigned. int is signed.