Bitwise and Bit Shift Operators example in Java

By: Grenfel in Java Tutorials on 2007-10-13

The Java programming language also provides operators that perform bitwise and bit shift operations on integral types. The operators discussed here are less commonly used. Therefore, their coverage is brief; the intent is to simply make you aware that these operators exist.

The unary bitwise complement operator "~" inverts a bit pattern; it can be applied to any of the integral types, making every "0" a "1" and every "1" a "0". For example, a byte contains 8 bits; applying this operator to a value whose bit pattern is "00000000" would change its pattern to "11111111".

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.

The bitwise & operator performs a bitwise AND operation.

The bitwise ^ operator performs a bitwise exclusive OR operation.

The bitwise | operator performs a bitwise inclusive OR operation.

The following program, BitDemo, uses the bitwise AND operator to print the number "2" to standard output.

class BitDemo {
     public static void main(String[] args) {
          int bitmask = 0x000F;
	  int val = 0x2222;
	  System.out.println(val & bitmask);  // prints "2"
     }
}

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