Java provides two interesting Boolean operators not found in most other computer languages. These are secondary versions of the Boolean AND and OR operators, and are known as short-circuit logical operators.
As you can see from the preceding table, the OR operator results in true when A is true, no matter what B is. Similarly, the AND operator results in false when A is false, no matter what B is. If operator results in false when A is false, no matter what B is.
If you use the | | and && forms, rather than the | and & forms of these operators, java will not bother to evaluate the right-hand operand alone. This is very useful when the right-hand operand depends on the left one being true or false in order to function properly.
For example, the following code fragment shows how you can take advantage of short-circuit logical evaluation to be sure that a division operation will be valid before evaluating it:
Since the short-circuit form of AND (&&) is used, there is no risk of causing a run-time exception when denom is zero. If this line of code were written using the single & version of AND, both sides would have to be evaluated, causing a run-time exception when denom is zero.
It is standard practice to use the short-circuit forms of AND and OR in cases involving Boolean logic, leaving the single-character versions exclusively for bitwise operations. However, there are exceptions to this rule. For example, consider the following statement:
Here, using a single & ensures that the increment operation will be applied to e whether c is equal to 1 or not.
As you can see from the preceding table, the OR operator results in true when A is true, no matter what B is. Similarly, the AND operator results in false when A is false, no matter what B is. If operator results in false when A is false, no matter what B is.
If you use the | | and && forms, rather than the | and & forms of these operators, java will not bother to evaluate the right-hand operand alone. This is very useful when the right-hand operand depends on the left one being true or false in order to function properly.
For example, the following code fragment shows how you can take advantage of short-circuit logical evaluation to be sure that a division operation will be valid before evaluating it:
if ( denom != 0 && num / denom >10)
Since the short-circuit form of AND (&&) is used, there is no risk of causing a run-time exception when denom is zero. If this line of code were written using the single & version of AND, both sides would have to be evaluated, causing a run-time exception when denom is zero.
It is standard practice to use the short-circuit forms of AND and OR in cases involving Boolean logic, leaving the single-character versions exclusively for bitwise operations. However, there are exceptions to this rule. For example, consider the following statement:
if ( c==1 & e++ < 100 ) d = 100;
Here, using a single & ensures that the increment operation will be applied to e whether c is equal to 1 or not.
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