A numeric value intended for a bit-by-bit value comparison with other numeric values, typically to flag options in parameter or return values. Usually this comparison is done with bitwise logical operators, such as And and Or in Visual Basic, & and | in C++.
For example, the ADO FieldAttributeEnum values can be used as bitmasks to determine the attributes of a field. Suppose you wanted to determine if a field was updatable. You could test for this with the following expression in Visual Basic:
Field.Attributes AND adFldUpdatable
If the result is TRUE, then the field is updatable.