Storing value in a reg

[Altera_Forum]

input [11:0] stimulus; 

 reg val;   always @(posedge clk)  val <=# 1 |(stimulus);     what should be the value stored in the register val? Is it the same as saying val = val | stimulus? And does value always store the lower bit of the stimulus since val is just 1 bit but stimulus is 12 bits?   Thanks.

[Altera_Forum]

The use of the '|' operator in this case is referred to as a reduction operator. val will get the bitwise OR of all the bits in stimulus. So basically if any bit in stimulus is set, val will be a '1', otherwise, it will be '0'; 

 It's the same as writing  val <= stimulus[11] | stimulus[10] | stimulus[9] ..... | stimulus[1] | stimulus[0];  only obviously signicantly shorter.  Jake