Instruction being skipped is there something I'm not seeing?

Question

I have this function to convert a character sequence of 7 bits to the actual character it represents (ASCII). So for example, taken the string "1001110" the function should return 'N.'

char bits_to_char(char* bits)
{
    byte ret = 0;
    int i = 0;
    for(i = 0; i < CHAR_SZ; i++){
        if(bits[i] == '1'){
            ret++;
        }
        (ret << 1) && 0xFF;
    }
    return (char) ret;

}

The left shift on ret isn't happening. When I step through it with my debugger it just skips it completely. I tried adding a continue after the increment on ret but it didn't change anything.

Answer 1

The line

(ret << 1) && 0xFF;

at best does the operation and throws away the result.

A reasonable compiler will spot this and optimise it away

Answer 2

Bit-shifting should be done before incrementing the value of ret. And converting to upper-case is only necessary when the string has be converted to a value:

unsigned char bits_to_char(const char* bits)
{
    unsigned ret = 0;
    size_t size = strlen(bits);
    int i;
    for(i = 0; i < size; i++){

        ret <<= 1;
        if( bits[i] == '1'){
            ++ret;
        }
    }
    return (unsigned char) (ret & 0xFF);
}