Contents

The ~ Operator (NOT)

General Usage:
result = ~operand;

The ~ operator is called an unary operator, because it takes only one argument. The arguments of an operator are also called the operands. Other operators, for instance, the & operator, require two operands, thus they are called binary operators. Operators that require three operands are called ternary operators...

By using ~, you can calculate the bitwise complement of a value. The bitwise complement of a value is the value with the opposite bit states:
 
1100 1110 1001 1101 is the bitwise complement of
0011 0001 0110 0010

Example:

public class ExampleBitwiseNOT { public static void main(String[] args) { int value = 0x87654321; System.out.println("Value : " + Integer.toBinaryString(value)); //calculates the bitwise complement int NOT_value = ~value; System.out.println("Bitwise Complement: " + Integer.toBinaryString(NOT_value)); } } /* The output of this example will be: Value : 10000111011001010100001100100001 Bitwise Complement: 1111000100110101011110011011110 */

The & Operator (AND)

General Usage:
result = operand1 & operand2;

As you can see, the & operator is a binary operator, because it takes two operands.

This operator is used to combine two values by ANDing their bits at each position. The bit state of the resulting value at a specific position is only 1, if the states of the bits at that position of operand1 AND operand2 are 1:
 
The result of
  1100 1110 1001 1101
& 1101 0100 0111 1001
is
  1100 0100 0001 1001 .

Example:

public class ExampleBitwiseAND { public static void main(String[] args) { int operand1 = 0x87654321; int operand2 = 0xFEDCBA98; System.out.println("Operand1 : " + Integer.toBinaryString(operand1)); System.out.println("Operand2 : " + Integer.toBinaryString(operand2)); //calculates the bitwise AND result int result = operand1 & operand2; System.out.println("Result : " + Integer.toBinaryString(result)); } } /* The output of this example will be: Operand1 : 10000111011001010100001100100001 Operand2 : 11111110110111001011101010011000 Result : 10000110010001000000001000000000 */