XOR, also known as exclusive OR, is a bitwise operator represented by ^. It compares the binary representation of two numbers, and the result is 0 if the bits are the same or 1 if the bits are different. For example, the binary representation of 5 is 101, and for 3, it is 011. When XOR is applied, 5 ^ 3 gives 110, which equals 6 in decimal.
One important property of XOR is that any number XORed with itself results in 0. For instance, 5 ^ 5 = 0. Additionally, XORing a number with 0 returns the number itself, such as 5 ^ 0 = 5. Another key property is that XOR is both commutative and associative, meaning the order in which you XOR multiple numbers does not matter. For example, a ^ b ^ c is the same as c ^ a ^ b.