java & operator with two integers?

Question

From what I understand the & operator is similar to the && operator except that the && only checks the second if the first is true, while the & checks both regardless of the result of the first one. Basically the && just saves a little time and power.

If that is so, then how does this code work?

int l = 0;
if ((l & 8) != 0 && (l & 4) == 0){ do something}

what does the (l & 8) and the (l & 4) do? What does the & do in this case?

This is a bitwise AND operator. http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/nutsandbolts/op3.html — Alexis C., Dec 17 '13 at 23:20
By the way, this is equivalent to `if ((l & 12) == 8) { do something }` — harold, Dec 19 '13 at 10:37

score 17 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 17 '13 at 23:23

17

& and && are two different operators but the difference is not what you've described.

& does the bit-wise AND of two integers and produces a third integer whose bit are set to 1 if both corresponding bits in the two source integers are both set to 1; 0 otherwise.

&& applies only to two booleans and returns a third boolean which will be true if both the input booleans are true; false otherwise.

answered Dec 17 '13 at 23:23

Raffaele Rossi

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11

That makes a lot more sense. Does it use the binary codes from ASCII, or just straight binary 0 being 0, 1 being 1, 10 being 2, and so on? – nife552 Dec 17 '13 at 23:31
To use your terminology it uses "just straight binary 0 being 0, 1 being 1, 10 being 2, and so on", which is known as [binary number](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_number). [ASCII](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII) is a way of coding "written alphabet" characters to a binary numbers (aka character-encoding). There exist others like [EBCDIC](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBCDIC) or [UNICDE](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNICODE) – Raffaele Rossi Dec 17 '13 at 23:59

java & operator with two integers?

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