You can also use masks to turn a bit in a number on using |. For example, let’s say I want to make sure the rightmost bit of number a is turned on. I could do this:

a = 0b110 # 6
mask = 0b1 # 1
desired =  a | mask # 0b111, or 7

Using the bitwise | operator will turn a corresponding bit on if it is off and leave it on if it is already on.