Bitwise AND, OR, XOR, and left/right shift operations.

Question

Ravi Vishwakarma · Answer

Bitwise operations in Java are used to manipulate individual bits of integers.

Here's a brief overview of each operation:

Bitwise AND (&):

The bitwise AND operator (&) compares corresponding bits of two integers. The result is a bit set to 1 if both bits are 1, otherwise, it is 0.
Example: 5 & 3 results in 1 (0101 & 0011 = 0001).

Bitwise OR (|):

The bitwise OR operator (|) compares corresponding bits of two integers. The result is a bit set to 1 if at least one of the bits is 1.
Example: 5 | 3 results in 7 (0101 | 0011 = 0111).

Bitwise XOR (^):

The bitwise XOR operator (^) compares corresponding bits of two integers. The result is a bit set to 1 if exactly one of the bits is 1, but not both.
Example: 5 ^ 3 results in 6 (0101 ^ 0011 = 0110).

Left Shift (<<):

The left shift operator (<<) shifts the bits of the left-hand operand to the left by several positions specified by the right-hand operand. This operation effectively multiplies the number by 2 to the power of the shift count.
Example: 5 << 1 results in 10 (0101 << 1 = 1010).

Right Shift (>>):

The right shift operator (>>) shifts the bits of the left-hand operand to the right by several positions specified by the right-hand operand. For positive numbers, this operation effectively divides the number by 2 to the power of the shift count.
Example: 5 >> 1 results in 2 (0101 >> 1 = 0010).

Unsigned Right Shift (>>>):

The unsigned right shift operator (>>>) shifts zero-filled bits to the right. Regardless of the sign bit, the result of shifting is always non-negative.
Example: -5 >>> 1 results in 2147483645 (11111111111111111111111111111011 >>> 1 = 01111111111111111111111111111101 in binary, which equals 2147483645 in decimal).

These bitwise operations are useful for low-level programming, bit manipulation, and optimization in scenarios where performance is critical.

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