What does the operator ^ stand for in java?

Question

I just saw it in a code, so I tried this :

int i = 30;
System.out.println(i^3);

Result is :

29

What is this ? Thanks.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1991380/what-does-the-operator-do-in-java?rq=1 — default locale, Mar 05 '13 at 15:53

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 05 '13 at 15:53

5

answered Mar 05 '13 at 15:53

Armen Tsirunyan

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 05 '13 at 15:58

4

^ its an exclusove OR operator (XOR). Its actually bitwise sum % 2.

11110 (30)
00011 (3)
----------
11101 (29)

answered Mar 05 '13 at 15:58

kaysush

Thanks a lot for this explanation, I mainly wanted to know why this returns 29. – Rob Mar 05 '13 at 15:59

christopher · Answer 3 · 2013-03-05T16:00:00.603

3

^ in Java is the XOR operator

XOR stands for a bitwise Exclusive OR. IE:

0 XOR 0 = 0

0 XOR 1 = 1

If the bit's are different (exclusive) then the output is a 1, otherwise a 0.

So following your example:

11110 XOR 00011 = 11101 = 29

edited Mar 05 '13 at 16:00

answered Mar 05 '13 at 15:54

christopher

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 05 '13 at 15:54

3

answered Mar 05 '13 at 15:54

PermGenError

4 Answers4