A Detailed Guide on Operators in Java

Different Types of Operators in Java

Java offers the following operators:

• Unary Operators
• Arithmetic Operators
• Bitwise Operators
• Logical Operators
• Relational Operators
• Shift Operators
• Ternary Operators
• Assignment Operators

Now that you know the types of operators in Java, it’s time to understand each of them with examples.

Java Unary Operators

Unary operators in Java require only one operand. They are used to increment/decrement and negotiate a value. It is also possible to invert a Boolean value with unary operators. The table depicted below shows different unary operators and what they do.

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Here’s an example using the unary operators.

Java Arithmetic Operators

Arithmetic operators in Java perform multiplicative and additive operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and modulus. The table below shows different arithmetic operators and what they do.

The example below shows the usage of all the arithmetic operators.

Java Bitwise Operators

Bitwise operators in Java perform operations on individual bits. The table below shows different bitwise operators and what they do.

Let’s look at the example below to understand the bitwise operator. Consider the value of a is 108, and that of b is 29. The binary format of these values is:

108: 0110 1100

29: 0001 1101

Now the values of:

a&b = 0000 1100 = 12

a|b = 0111 1101 = 125

a^b = 0111 0001 = 113

~a = 1001 0011 = -109 (Don’t get confused, it calculates the answer in 2’s complement form as it is a signed binary number).

Now, look at whether our Java program gives the same results.

Java Logical Operators

Logical operators in Java are used to perform logical AND, OR, and NOT operations. The table below shows different logical operators and what they do.

The example below shows the use of logical operators in Java.

The significant difference between the logical AND and bitwise AND is that the logical AND only checks the second expression in the event that the first one is true. Whereas, the bitwise AND operator will check the second expression even if the first one is true. Similarly, the difference between logical OR and bitwise OR is that the logical OR would check the 2nd expression, only in the case where the first one is false. On the other hand, the bitwise OR will check the second expression even if the first one is false.

Java Relational Operators

Relational operators in Java are used to check relations between two operands. The table below shows different relational operators and what they do.

Let’s look at an example to see the use of relational operators in Java.

Java Shift Operators

Shift operators in Java are used to shift the binary bits of a number to the left or right. By shifting the bits, it will multiply or divide the operand by two. The table below shows different shift operators and what they do.

The example below shows the use of shift operators.

Java Ternary Operator

A ternary operator in Java is used as a shorthand replacer to if-else statements. It is also referred to as a miscellaneous operator. The table below shows different ternary operators and what they do.

Let’s look at an example to use the ternary operator in Java.

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Java Assignment Operators

As the name suggests, assignment operators in Java assign values specified on its right, to the operands on its left. It assigns the right value to the left operand because it has a right to left associativity (you will look at precedence and associativity of each type of operator later in this tutorial). The table below shows different assignment operators and what they do.

You can also combine the assignment operator with other operators to shorten the statement. For instance, we can combine = with + to write a+=10, instead of writing a=a+10. Similarly, we can combine = with -, *, /, %, and more operators. The example below shows the use of the assignment operator.

Java Operators Precedence and Association

When there is over one operator in a single statement, precedence determines how they will be evaluated and executed. For instance, multiplication has higher precedence than addition. Hence, in the statement a=8+3*4, a will become 20 and not 44 as 3 will be multiplied by 4 first and then added to 12. Similarly, all the operators in Java have precedence. They also have an association, which determines whether the operators will be evaluated from left to right or vice versa. The table below shows Java operators’ precedence and association. Operators higher in the table have higher precedence than the lower ones.

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