What function does the ^ (caret) operator serve in Java?
When I try this:
int a = 5^n;
...it gives me:
for n = 5, returns 0
for n = 4, returns 1
for n = 6, returns 3
...so I guess it doesn't perform exponentiation. But what is it then?
The ^ operator in Java
^ in Java is the exclusive-or ("xor") operator.
Let's take 5^6 as example:
(decimal) (binary)
5 = 101
6 = 110
------------------ xor
3 = 011
This the truth table for bitwise (JLS 15.22.1) and logical (JLS 15.22.2) xor:
^ | 0 1 ^ | F T
--+----- --+-----
0 | 0 1 F | F T
1 | 1 0 T | T F
More simply, you can also think of xor as "this or that, but not both!".
See also
Wikipedia: exclusive-or
Exponentiation in Java
As for integer exponentiation, unfortunately Java does not have such an operator. You can use double Math.pow(double, double) (casting the result to int if necessary).
You can also use the traditional bit-shifting trick to compute some powers of two. That is, (1L << k) is two to the k-th power for k=0..63.
See also
Wikipedia: Arithmetic shift
Merge note: this answer was merged from another question where the intention was to use exponentiation to convert a string "8675309" to int without using Integer.parseInt as a programming exercise (^ denotes exponentiation from now on). The OP's intention was to compute 8*10^6 + 6*10^5 + 7*10^4 + 5*10^3 + 3*10^2 + 0*10^1 + 9*10^0 = 8675309; the next part of this answer addresses that exponentiation is not necessary for this task.
Horner's scheme
Addressing your specific need, you actually don't need to compute various powers of 10. You can use what is called the Horner's scheme, which is not only simple but also efficient.
Since you're doing this as a personal exercise, I won't give the Java code, but here's the main idea:
8675309 = 8*10^6 + 6*10^5 + 7*10^4 + 5*10^3 + 3*10^2 + 0*10^1 + 9*10^0
= (((((8*10 + 6)*10 + 7)*10 + 5)*10 + 3)*10 + 0)*10 + 9
It may look complicated at first, but it really isn't. You basically read the digits left to right, and you multiply your result so far by 10 before adding the next digit.
In table form:
step result digit result*10+digit
1 init=0 8 8
2 8 6 86
3 86 7 867
4 867 5 8675
5 8675 3 86753
6 86753 0 867530
7 867530 9 8675309=final
As many people have already pointed out, it's the XOR operator. Many people have also already pointed out that if you want exponentiation then you need to use Math.pow.
But I think it's also useful to note that ^ is just one of a family of operators that are collectively known as bitwise operators:
Operator Name Example Result Description
a & b and 3 & 5 1 1 if both bits are 1.
a | b or 3 | 5 7 1 if either bit is 1.
a ^ b xor 3 ^ 5 6 1 if both bits are different.
~a not ~3 -4 Inverts the bits.
n << p left shift 3 << 2 12 Shifts the bits of n left p positions. Zero bits are shifted into the low-order positions.
n >> p right shift 5 >> 2 1 Shifts the bits of n right p positions. If n is a 2's complement signed number, the sign bit is shifted into the high-order positions.
n >>> p right shift -4 >>> 28 15 Shifts the bits of n right p positions. Zeros are shifted into the high-order positions.
From here.
These operators can come in handy when you need to read and write to integers where the individual bits should be interpreted as flags, or when a specific range of bits in an integer have a special meaning and you want to extract only those. You can do a lot of every day programming without ever needing to use these operators, but if you ever have to work with data at the bit level, a good knowledge of these operators is invaluable.
It's bitwise XOR, Java does not have an exponentiation operator, you would have to use Math.pow() instead.
XOR operator rule =>
0 ^ 0 = 0
1 ^ 1 = 0
0 ^ 1 = 1
1 ^ 0 = 1
Binary representation of 4, 5 and 6 :
4 = 1 0 0
5 = 1 0 1
6 = 1 1 0
now, perform XOR operation on 5 and 4:
5 ^ 4 => 1 0 1 (5)
1 0 0 (4)
----------
0 0 1 => 1
Similarly,
5 ^ 5 => 1 0 1 (5)
1 0 1 (5)
------------
0 0 0 => (0)
5 ^ 6 => 1 0 1 (5)
1 1 0 (6)
-----------
0 1 1 => 3
It is the XOR bitwise operator.
Lot many people have already explained about what it is and how it can be used but apart from the obvious you can use this operator to do a lot of programming tricks like
XORing of all the elements in a boolean array would tell you if the array has odd number of true elements
If you have an array with all numbers repeating even number of times except one which repeats odd number of times you can find that by XORing all elements.
Swapping values without using temporary variable
Finding missing number in the range 1 to n
Basic validation of data sent over the network.
Lot many such tricks can be done using bit wise operators, interesting topic to explore.
XOR operator rule
0 ^ 0 = 0
1 ^ 1 = 0
0 ^ 1 = 1
1 ^ 0 = 1
Bitwise operator works on bits and performs bit-by-bit operation. Assume if a = 60 and b = 13; now in binary format they will be as follows −
a = 0011 1100
b = 0000 1101
a^b ==> 0011 1100 (a)
0000 1101 (b)
------------- XOR
0011 0001 => 49
(a ^ b) will give 49 which is 0011 0001
As others have said, it's bitwise XOR. If you want to raise a number to a given power, use Math.pow(a , b), where a is a number and b is the power.
AraK's link points to the definition of exclusive-or, which explains how this function works for two boolean values.
The missing piece of information is how this applies to two integers (or integer-type values). Bitwise exclusive-or is applied to pairs of corresponding binary digits in two numbers, and the results are re-assembled into an integer result.
To use your example:
The binary representation of 5 is 0101.
The binary representation of 4 is 0100.
A simple way to define bitwise XOR is to say the result has a 1 in every place where the two input numbers differ.
With 4 and 5, the only difference is in the last place; so
0101 ^ 0100 = 0001 (5 ^ 4 = 1) .
It is the Bitwise xor operator in java which results 1 for different value of bit (ie 1 ^ 0 = 1) and 0 for same value of bit (ie 0 ^ 0 = 0) when a number is written in binary form.
ex :-
To use your example:
The binary representation of 5 is 0101.
The binary representation of 4 is 0100.
A simple way to define Bitwise XOR is to say the result has a 1 in every place where the two input numbers differ.
0101 ^ 0100 = 0001 (5 ^ 4 = 1) .
To perform exponentiation, you can use Math.pow instead:
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.5.0/docs/api/java/lang/Math.html#pow%28double,%20double%29
As already stated by the other answer(s), it's the "exclusive or" (XOR) operator. For more information on bit-operators in Java, see: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/java/nutsandbolts/op3.html
That is because you are using the xor operator.
In java, or just about any other language, ^ is bitwise xor,
so of course,
10 ^ 1 = 11.
more info about bitwise operators
It's interesting how Java and C# don't have a power operator.
It is the bitwise xor operator in java which results 1 for different value (ie 1 ^ 0 = 1) and 0 for same value (ie 0 ^ 0 = 0).
^ is binary (as in base-2) xor, not exponentiation (which is not available as a Java operator). For exponentiation, see java.lang.Math.pow().
It is XOR operator. It is use to do bit operations on numbers. It has the behavior such that when you do a xor operation on same bits say 0 XOR 0 / 1 XOR 1 the result is 0. But if any of the bits is different then result is 1.
So when you did 5^3 then you can look at these numbers 5, 6 in their binary forms and thus the expression becomes (101) XOR (110) which gives the result (011) whose decimal representation is 3.
As an addition to the other answers, it's worth mentioning that the caret operator can also be used with boolean operands, and it returns true (if and only if) the operands are different:
System.out.println(true ^ true); // false
System.out.println(true ^ false); // true
System.out.println(false ^ false); // false
System.out.println(false ^ true); // true
^ = (bitwise XOR)
Description
Binary XOR Operator copies the bit if it is set in one operand but not both.
example
(A ^ B) will give 49 which is 0011 0001
In other languages like Python you can do 10**2=100, try it.
Related
I executed this (~(1 << 3)) statement and I am getting -9 as a result.
Statement : (~(1 << 3))
Result : -9
Numbers in computers are stored in 2's complement form.
Your original number is 1,which is 0...0001 in binary. I'm skipping bit 4 to 30 as they all will be zero (consider 32-bit system).
Doing 1 << 3 will yield 0...1000 i.e. +8. In simple terms, it means multiply 1 by 2^i, where i = 3 here.
Now, inverting this yields 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1000 which is a negative number in 2's complement form.
To get the value of the number, drop the first 1(sign bit), invert the entire number again and add 1.
So, inverting again will give you 0...1000. Add 1 to this, so 0...1001.
This is the value of the number which is 9. And sign is negative because the first sign bit is 1.
<< is the left-shift operator, which in simple terms, when applied to a number, multiplies it by 2^i, where i is the number of bits to be shifted, for example :
1 << 3 = 8 (multiply 1 by 2^3)
2 << 4 = 32 (multiply 2 by 2^4)
and ~ is the NOT operator, which takes each bit in a number and toggles it. In simple terms, ~x = -x - 1 For example :
~100102 = 011012
~8 = -9
Now coming to your question, (~(1 << 3)) = (~8) = -9. For more info, check this answer : NOT(~) vs NEGATION(!).
byte x=3;
x=(byte)~x;
System.out.println(x);
I was confused between the output being 4 or 0 but the output is coming to be -4.
How is that ??
It's simple !!
~a = -a - 1
Since the value of a = 3, the answer must be -4. You can check with other values too.
On a byte 3 is represented as 00000011. Then ~3 is 11111100 which is a negative number (starts with 1).
See the official docs:
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".
What is 3 in binary? It's 0000 0011.
What's ~3? It's 11111100, which is -4 (Two's complement).
Note, ~ is not an negation, it's an operator.
bit 3 = 0000 0011
x = 3
~x = 1111 1100
the ~ is the bitwise not. So when the first value in the bit string is a 1 it is a negative
~ is reversing a Bit operator.
Bit reversal consists of reversing the value of a bit. If the box contains 1, you can reverse it to 0. If it contains 0, you can reverse it to 1. To support this operation, the Java language provides the bitwise negation operator represented with the ~ symbol.
3 --> 00000011
~3 --> 11111100
As it's a 2's complement number, the first bit being one means that it's a negative number.
11111100=-4
To verify see below:
00000011 <- reversing
+ 1<- adding 1
00000100 =4
On CodeReview I posted a working piece of code and asked for tips to improve it. One I got was to use a boolean method to check if an ArrayList had an even number of indices (which was required). This was the code that was suggested:
private static boolean isEven(int number)
{
return (number & 1) == 0;
}
As I've already pestered that particular user for a lot of help, I've decided it's time I pestered the SO community! I don't really understand how this works. The method is called and takes the size of the ArrayList as a parameter (i.e. ArrayList has ten elements, number = 10).
I know a single & runs the comparison of both number and 1, but I got lost after that.
The way I read it, it is saying return true if number == 0 and 1 == 0. I know the first isn't true and the latter obviously doesn't make sense. Could anybody help me out?
Edit: I should probably add that the code does work, in case anyone is wondering.
Keep in mind that "&" is a bitwise operation. You are probably aware of this, but it's not totally clear to me based on the way you posed the question.
That being said, the theoretical idea is that you have some int, which can be expressed in bits by some series of 1s and 0s. For example:
...10110110
In binary, because it is base 2, whenever the bitwise version of the number ends in 0, it is even, and when it ends in 1 it is odd.
Therefore, doing a bitwise & with 1 for the above is:
...10110110 & ...00000001
Of course, this is 0, so you can say that the original input was even.
Alternatively, consider an odd number. For example, add 1 to what we had above. Then
...10110111 & ...00000001
Is equal to 1, and is therefore, not equal to zero. Voila.
You can determine the number either is even or odd by the last bit in its binary representation:
1 -> 00000000000000000000000000000001 (odd)
2 -> 00000000000000000000000000000010 (even)
3 -> 00000000000000000000000000000011 (odd)
4 -> 00000000000000000000000000000100 (even)
5 -> 00000000000000000000000000000101 (odd)
6 -> 00000000000000000000000000000110 (even)
7 -> 00000000000000000000000000000111 (odd)
8 -> 00000000000000000000000000001000 (even)
& between two integers is bitwise AND operator:
0 & 0 = 0
0 & 1 = 0
1 & 0 = 0
1 & 1 = 1
So, if (number & 1) == 0 is true, this means number is even.
Let's assume that number == 6, then:
6 -> 00000000000000000000000000000110 (even)
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
1 -> 00000000000000000000000000000001
-------------------------------------
0 -> 00000000000000000000000000000000
and when number == 7:
7 -> 00000000000000000000000000000111 (odd)
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
1 -> 00000000000000000000000000000001
-------------------------------------
1 -> 00000000000000000000000000000001
& is the bitwise AND operator. && is the logical AND operator
In binary, if the digits bit is set (i.e one), the number is odd.
In binary, if the digits bit is zero , the number is even.
(number & 1) is a bitwise AND test of the digits bit.
Another way to do this (and possibly less efficient but more understandable) is using the modulus operator %:
private static boolean isEven(int number)
{
if (number < 0)
throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException();
return (number % 2) == 0;
}
This expression means "the integer represents an even number".
Here is the reason why: the binary representation of decimal 1 is 00000000001. All odd numbers end in a 1 in binary (this is easy to verify: suppose the number's binary representation does not end in 1; then it's composed of non-zero powers of two, which is always an even number). When you do a binary AND with an odd number, the result is 1; when you do a binary AND with an even number, the result is 0.
This used to be the preferred method of deciding odd/even back at the time when optimizers were poor to nonexistent, and % operators required twenty times the number of cycles taken by an & operator. These days, if you do number % 2 == 0, the compiler is likely to generate code that executes as quickly as (number & 1) == 0 does.
Single & means bit-wise and operator not comparison
So this code checks if the first bit (least significant/most right) is set or not, which indicates if the number is odd or not; because all odd numbers will end with 1 in the least significant bit e.g. xxxxxxx1
& is a bitwise AND operation.
For number = 8:
1000
0001
& ----
0000
The result is that (8 & 1) == 0. This is the case for all even numbers, since they are multiples of 2 and the first binary digit from the right is always 0. 1 has a binary value of 1 with leading 0s, so when we AND it with an even number we're left with 0.
The & operator in Java is the bitwise-and operator. Basically, (number & 1) performs a bitwise-and between number and 1. The result is either 0 or 1, depending on whether it's even or odd. Then the result is compared with 0 to determine if it's even.
Here's a page describing bitwise operations.
It is performing a binary and against 1, which returns 0 if the least significant bit is not set
for your example
00001010 (10)
00000001 (1)
===========
00000000 (0)
This is Logical design concept bitwise & (AND)operater.
return ( 2 & 1 ); means- convert the value to bitwise numbers and comapre the (AND) feature and returns the value.
Prefer this link http://www.roseindia.net/java/master-java/java-bitwise-and.shtml
I have a variable that represents the XOR of 2 numbers. For example: int xor = 7 ^ 2;
I am looking into a code that according to comments finds the rightmost bit that is set in XOR:
int rightBitSet = xor & ~(xor - 1);
I can't follow how exactly does this piece of code work. I mean in the case of 7^2 it will indeed set rightBitSet to 0001 (in binary) i.e. 1. (indeed the rightmost bit set)
But if the xor is 7^3 then the rightBitSet is being set to 0100 i.e 4 which is also the same value as xor (and is not the rightmost bit set).
The logic of the code is to find a number that represents a different bit between the numbers that make up xor and although the comments indicate that it finds
the right most bit set, it seems to me that the code finds a bit pattern with 1 differing bit in any place.
Am I correct? I am not sure also how the code works. It seems that there is some relationship between a number X and the number X-1 in its binary representation?
What is this relationship?
The effect of subtracting 1 from a binary number is to replace the least significant 1 in it with a 0, and set all the less significant bits to 1. For example:
5 - 1 = 101 - 1 = 100 = 4
4 - 1 = 100 - 1 = 011 = 3
6 - 1 = 110 - 1 = 101 = 5
So in evaluating x & ~(x - 1): above x's least significant 1, ~(x - 1) has the same set bits as ~x, so above x's least significant 1, x & ~(x-1) has no 1 bits. By definition, x has a 1 bit at its least significant 1, and as we saw above ~(x - 1) will, too, but ~(x - 1) will have 0s below that point. Therefore, x & ~(x - 1) will have only one 1 bit, at the least significant bit of x.
Line 294 of java.util.Random source says
if ((n & -n) == n) // i.e., n is a power of 2
// rest of the code
Why is this?
Because in 2's complement, -n is ~n+1.
If n is a power of 2, then it only has one bit set. So ~n has all the bits set except that one. Add 1, and you set the special bit again, ensuring that n & (that thing) is equal to n.
The converse is also true because 0 and negative numbers were ruled out by the previous line in that Java source. If n has more than one bit set, then one of those is the highest such bit. This bit will not be set by the +1 because there's a lower clear bit to "absorb" it:
n: 00001001000
~n: 11110110111
-n: 11110111000 // the first 0 bit "absorbed" the +1
^
|
(n & -n) fails to equal n at this bit.
The description is not entirely accurate because (0 & -0) == 0 but 0 is not a power of two. A better way to say it is
((n & -n) == n) when n is a power of two, or the negative of a power of two, or zero.
If n is a power of two, then n in binary is a single 1 followed by zeros.
-n in two's complement is the inverse + 1 so the bits lines up thus
n 0000100...000
-n 1111100...000
n & -n 0000100...000
To see why this work, consider two's complement as inverse + 1, -n == ~n + 1
n 0000100...000
inverse n 1111011...111
+ 1
two's comp 1111100...000
since you carry the one all the way through when adding one to get the two's complement.
If n were anything other than a power of two† then the result would be missing a bit because the two's complement would not have the highest bit set due to that carry.
† - or zero or a negative of a power of two ... as explained at the top.
You need to look at the values as bitmaps to see why this is true:
1 & 1 = 1
1 & 0 = 0
0 & 1 = 0
0 & 0 = 0
So only if both fields are 1 will a 1 come out.
Now -n does a 2's complement. It changes all the 0 to 1 and it adds 1.
7 = 00000111
-1 = NEG(7) + 1 = 11111000 + 1 = 11111001
However
8 = 00001000
-8 = 11110111 + 1 = 11111000
00001000 (8)
11111000 (-8)
--------- &
00001000 = 8.
Only for powers of 2 will (n & -n) be n.
This is because a power of 2 is represented as a single set bit in a long sea of zero's.
The negation will yield the exact opposite, a single zero (in the spot where the 1 used to be) in a sea of 1's. Adding 1 will shift the lower ones into the space where the zero is.
And The bitwise and (&) will filter out the 1 again.
In two's complement representation, the unique thing about powers of two, is that they consist of all 0 bits, except for the kth bit, where n = 2^k:
base 2 base 10
000001 = 1
000010 = 2
000100 = 4
...
To get a negative value in two's complement, you flip all the bits and add one. For powers of two, that means you get a bunch of 1s on the left up to and including the 1 bit that was in the positive value, and then a bunch of 0s on the right:
n base 2 ~n ~n+1 (-n) n&-n
1 000001 111110 111111 000001
2 000010 111101 111110 000010
4 000100 111011 111100 000100
8 001000 110111 111000 001000
You can easily see that the result of column 2 & 4 is going to be the same as column 2.
If you look at the other values missing from this chart, you can see why this doesn't hold for anything but the powers of two:
n base 2 ~n ~n+1 (-n) n&-n
1 000001 111110 111111 000001
2 000010 111101 111110 000010
3 000011 111100 111101 000001
4 000100 111011 111100 000100
5 000101 111010 111011 000001
6 000110 111001 111010 000010
7 000111 111000 111001 000001
8 001000 110111 111000 001000
n&-n will (for n > 0) only ever have 1 bit set, and that bit will be the least significant set bit in n. For all numbers that are powers of two, the least significant set bit is the only set bit. For all other numbers, there is more than one bit set, of which only the least significant will be set in the result.
It's property of powers of 2 and their two's complement.
For example, take 8:
8 = 0b00001000
-8 = 0b11111000
Calculating the two's complement:
Starting: 0b00001000
Flip bits: 0b11110111 (one's complement)
Add one: 0b11111000
AND 8 : 0b00001000
For powers of 2, only one bit will be set so adding will cause the nth bit of 2n to be set (the one keeps carrying to the nth bit). Then when you AND the two numbers, you get the original back.
For numbers that aren't powers of 2, other bits will not get flipped so the AND doesn't yield the original number.
Simply, if n is a power of 2 that means only one bit is set to 1 and the others are 0's:
00000...00001 = 2 ^ 0
00000...00010 = 2 ^ 1
00000...00100 = 2 ^ 2
00000...01000 = 2 ^ 3
00000...10000 = 2 ^ 4
and so on ...
and because -n is a 2's complement of n (that means the only bit which is 1 remains as it is and the bits on left side of that bit are sit to 1 which is actually doesn't matter since the result of AND operator & will be 0 if one of the two bits is zero):
000000...000010000...00000 <<< n
&
111111...111110000...00000 <<< -n
--------------------------
000000...000010000...00000 <<< n
Shown through example:
8 in hex = 0x000008
-8 in hex = 0xFFFFF8
8 & -8 = 0x000008