2220. Minimum Bit Flips to Convert Number (Python 3).py

class Solution:
    def minBitFlips(self, start: int, goal: int) -> int:
        count = 0  # Initialize the count of bit flips required

        # Continue processing until both start and goal are reduced to 0
        while start or goal:
            # Check if the least significant bit of start differs from the least significant bit of goal
            if (start & 1) != (goal & 1):
                count += 1  # Increment count if bits are different

            # Right shift both start and goal by 1 bit (essentially dividing by 2)
            start = start // 2
            goal = goal // 2

        return count  # Return the total count of bit flips needed