Java Operators

They are used to manipulate primitive data types. Java operators can be classified as unary, binary, or ternary—meaning taking one, two, or three arguments, respectively. A unary operator may appear
before (prefix) its argument or after (postfix) its argument. A binary or ternary operator appears between its arguments.

Operators in java fall into 8 different categories:

Java operators fall into eight different categories: assignment, arithmetic, relational, logical, bitwise,
compound assignment, conditional, and type.


Assignment Operators         =

 Arithmetic Operators         -        +        *        /        %        ++        –
 Relational Operators         >        <        >=        <=        ==        !=

 Logical Operators         &&        ||        &        |        !        ^

 Bit wise Operator         &        |        ^                >>        >>>

 Compound Assignment Operators         +=        -=        *=        /=        %=       
         <<=        >>=     >>>=

 Conditional Operator         ?:

Java has eight different operator types: assignment, arithmetic, relational, logical, bitwise, compound assignment, conditional, and type.


Assignment operators

The java assignment operator statement has the following syntax:

<variable> = <expression>

If the value already exists in the variable it is overwritten by the assignment operator (=).

public class AssignmentOperatorsDemo {

 public AssignmentOperatorsDemo() {
  //         Assigning Primitive Values
  int j, k;
  j = 10; // j gets the value 10.
  j = 5; // j gets the value 5. Previous value is overwritten.
  k = j; // k gets the value 5.
  System.out.println("j is : " + j);
  System.out.println("k is : " + k);
  //         Assigning References
  Integer i1 = new Integer("1");
  Integer i2 = new Integer("2");
  System.out.println("i1 is : " + i1);
  System.out.println("i2 is : " + i2);
  i1 = i2;
  System.out.println("i1 is : " + i1);
  System.out.println("i2 is : " + i2);
  //         Multiple Assignments
  k = j = 10; // (k = (j = 10))
  System.out.println("j is : " + j);
  System.out.println("k is : " + k);
 }
 public static void main(String args[]) {
  new AssignmentOperatorsDemo();
 }
}

Relational operators

Relational operators in Java are used to compare 2 or more objects. Java provides six relational operators:
greater than (>), less than (<), greater than or equal (>=), less than or equal (<=), equal (==), and not equal (!=).
All relational operators are binary operators, and their operands are numeric expressions.
Binary numeric promotion is applied to the operands of these operators. The evaluation results in a boolean value. Relational operators have precedence lower than arithmetic operators, but higher than that of the assignment operators. An example program is shown below that demonstrates the different relational operators in java.


public class RelationalOperatorsDemo {

   public RelationalOperatorsDemo( ) {

     int x = 10, y = 5;
     System.out.println(”x > y : “+(x > y));
     System.out.println(”x < y : “+(x < y));
     System.out.println(”x >= y : “+(x >= y));
     System.out.println(”x <= y : “+(x <= y));
     System.out.println(”x == y : “+(x == y));
     System.out.println(”x != y : “+(x != y));

  }

  public static void main(String args[]){
           new RelationalOperatorsDemo();
  }
}


Logical operators

Logical operators return a true or false value based on the state of the Variables. There are six logical, or boolean, operators. They are AND, conditional AND, OR, conditional OR, exclusive OR, and NOT. Each argument to a logical operator must be a boolean data type, and the result is always a boolean data type. An example program is shown below that demonstrates the different Logical operators in java.

public class LogicalOperatorsDemo {

 public LogicalOperatorsDemo() {
  boolean x = true;
  boolean y = false;
  System.out.println("x & y : " + (x & y));
  System.out.println("x && y : " + (x && y));
  System.out.println("x | y : " + (x | y));
  System.out.println("x || y: " + (x || y));
  System.out.println("x ^ y : " + (x ^ y));
  System.out.println("!x : " + (!x));
 }
 public static void main(String args[]) {
  new LogicalOperatorsDemo();
 }
}


Given that x and y represent boolean expressions, the boolean logical operators are defined in the Table below.

x

y

!x

x & y

x && y

x | y

x || y

x ^ y

true

true

false

true

true

false

true

false

false

false

true

true

false

true

true

false

true

true

false

false

true

false

false

false

Bitwise operators

Java provides Bit wise operators to manipulate the contents of variables at the bit level.
These variables must be of numeric data type ( char, short, int, or long). Java provides seven bitwise
operators. They are AND, OR, Exclusive-OR, Complement, Left-shift, Signed Right-shift, and Unsigned Right-shift. An example program is shown below that demonstrates the different Bit wise operators in java.

public class BitwiseOperatorsDemo {

 public BitwiseOperatorsDemo() {
  int x = 0xFAEF; //1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1
  int y = 0xF8E9; //1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 1
  int z;
  System.out.println(”x & y : ” + (x & y));
  System.out.println(”x | y : ” + (x | y));
  System.out.println(”x ^ y : ” + (x ^ y));
  System.out.println(”~x : ” + (~x));
  System.out.println(”x << y : ” + (x << y));
  System.out.println(”x >> y : ” + (x >> y));
  System.out.println(”x >>> y : ” + (x >>> y));
  //There is no unsigned left shift operator
 }
 public static void main(String args[]) {
  new BitwiseOperatorsDemo();
 }
}


The result of applying bitwise operators between two corresponding bits in the operands is shown in the Table below.

A

B

~A

A & B

A | B

A ^ B

1

1

0

1

1

0

1

0

0

0

1

1

0

1

1

0

1

1

0

0

1

0

0

0

Output

3,0,3

/*
* The below program demonstrates bitwise operators keeping in mind operator precedence
* Operator Precedence starting with the highest is -> |, ^, &
*/

public class BitwisePrecedenceEx {

 public static void main(String[] args) {
  int a = 1 | 2 ^ 3 & 5;
  int b = ((1 | 2) ^ 3) & 5;
  int c = 1 | (2 ^ (3 & 5));
  System.out.print(a + “,” + b + “,” + c);
 }
}


Compound operators

The compound operators perform shortcuts in common programming operations. Java has eleven compound assignment operators.
Syntax:

argument1 operator = argument2.

The above statement is the same as, argument1 = argument1 operator argument2. An example program is shown below that demonstrates the different Compound operators in java.

public class CompoundOperatorsDemo {

 public CompoundOperatorsDemo() {
  int x = 0, y = 5;
  x += 3;
  System.out.println("x : " + x);
  y *= x;
  System.out.println("y :  " + y);
  /*Similarly other operators can be applied as shortcuts. Other

   compound assignment operators include boolean logical

   , bitwiseand shift operators*/
 }
 public static void main(String args[]) {
  new CompoundOperatorsDemo();
 }

Conditional operators

The Conditional operator is the only ternary (operator takes three arguments) operator in Java. The operator evaluates the first argument and, if true, evaluates the second argument. If the first argument evaluates to false, then the third argument is evaluated. The conditional operator is the expression equivalent of the if-else statement. The conditional expression can be nested and the conditional operator associates from right to left: (a?b?c?d:e:f:g) evaluates as (a?(b?(c?d:e):f):g)

An example program is shown below that demonstrates the Ternary operator in java.

public class TernaryOperatorsDemo {

 public TernaryOperatorsDemo() {
  int x = 10, y = 12, z = 0;
  z = x > y ? x : y;
  System.out.println("z : " + z);
 }
 public static void main(String args[]) {
  new TernaryOperatorsDemo();
 }
}
 


/*
* The following programs shows that when no explicit parenthesis is used then the
conditional operator
* evaluation is from right to left
*/

public class BooleanEx1 {

 static String m1(boolean b) {
  return b ? "T" : "F";
 }
 public static void main(String[] args) {
  boolean t1 = false ? false : true ? false : true ? false : true;
  boolean t2 = false ? false
    : (true ? false : (true ? false : true));
  boolean t3 = ((false ? false : true) ? false : true) ? false
    : true;
  System.out.println(m1(t1) + m1(t2) + m1(t3));
 }
}

Output

FFT


Type conversion allows a value to be changed from one primitive data type to another. Conversion can occur explicitly, as specified in
the program, or implicitly, by Java itself. Java allows both type widening and type narrowing conversions.

In java Conversions can occur by the following ways:

  • Using a cast operator (explicit promotion)
  • Using an arithmetic operator is used with arguments of different data types (arithmetic promotion)
  • A value of one type is assigned to a variable of a different type (assignment promotion)

Operator Precedence

The order in which operators are applied is known as precedence. Operators with a higher precedence are applied before operators with a lower precedence. The operator precedence order of Java is shown below. Operators at the top of the table are applied before operators lower down in the table. If two operators have the same precedence, they are applied in the order they appear in a statement.
That is, from left to right. You can use parentheses to override the default precedence.

postfix [] . () expr++ expr–
unary ++expr –expr +expr -expr ! ~
creation/caste new (type)expr
multiplicative * / %
additive + -
shift >> >>>
relational < <= > >= instanceof
equality == !=
bitwise AND &
bitwise exclusive OR ^
bitwise inclusive OR |
logical AND &&
logical OR ||
ternary ?:
assignment = “op=”

Example

In an operation such as,

result = 4 + 5 * 3

First (5 * 3) is evaluated and the result is added to 4 giving the Final Result value as 19. Note that ‘*’ takes higher precedence than ‘+’ according to chart shown above. This kind of precedence of one operator over another applies to all the operators.