Q:

"&" operator in a conditional statement

I found this bunch of code in Services_JSON php library:
if ($this->use & SERVICES_JSON_LOOSE_TYPE) {
    $stk = array(SERVICES_JSON_IN_OBJ);
    $obj = array();
} else {
    $stk = array(SERVICES_JSON_IN_OBJ);
    $obj = new stdClass();
}

My question is about the first line. What does the single "&" operator do?

A:

It's the PHP bitwise AND operator: http://php.net/manual/en/language.operators.bitwise.php

