What is the ">>" and ">>>" operator in java?

Question

Hi I was wondering if anyone could help me with something I can find literally nothing online about. I was looking through some code that had the following statement:

int mainInt = 10>>> 5;

Does anyone know what this >> operator is?

For example 10 >> 1 equals 5 20 >>> equals 3

Thanks

You can't shift 20 to get a 3, because 20's binary representation is `10100` and `3` is `11`. — Sergey Kalinichenko, May 11 '15 at 20:33

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 11 '15 at 20:28

2

>> is the arithmetic right-shift operator.

>>> is the logical right-shift operator.

The first one preserves the sign of the operand. The second inserts zeros at the most significant bit positions, and is usually applied on unsigned numbers.

answered May 11 '15 at 20:28

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score 2 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:30

This has already been answered: Double Greater Than Sign (>>) in Java?

The signed left shift operator "<<" shifts a bit pattern to the left, and the signed right shift operator ">>" shifts a bit pattern to the right. The bit pattern is given by the left-hand operand, and the number of positions to shift by the right-hand operand. The unsigned right shift operator ">>>" shifts a zero into the leftmost position, while the leftmost position after ">>" depends on sign extension.

You can read about it here.

What is the ">>" and ">>>" operator in java?

2 Answers2