Operators

• The sequence in which different operators in an

expression are executed is determined by the
precedence of the operators.
• Operators with a higher precedence are executed
before operators with a lower precedence.
• In the following table, operators are in descending
order of precedence, so those with the highest
precedence are at the top.
• Operators within the same group in the table are of
equal precedence.

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• The sequence of execution of operators with the
same precedence in an expression is determined
from their associativity.
• The associativity of an operator determines how it
groups with its operands in an expression.
• Operators may be left-associative or right-
associative.

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• All unary operators and all assignment operators are
right associative.
• All other operators are left associative.
• With the throw operator (exception throwing) the
associativity is not available.

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• Associativity is only needed when the operators in an
expression have the same precedence. Usually +
and - have the same precedence. Consider the
expression 7-4+2. The result could be either (7-4)+2
= 5 or 7-(4+2) = 1. The former result corresponds to
the case when + and - are left-associative. The latter
result corresponds to the case when + and - are right-
associative. Operators with the same precedence
always have the same associativity. The operators +,
-, * and / are left-associative.

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• A left-associative operator can be said to associate
"to the left", and similarly a right-associative operator
can be said to associate "to the right". To understand
the intuition behind these names, consider again the
expression 7-4+2. If + and - are left-associative then
the middle operand (4) belongs to the operator on its
left (hence the name "to the left"). If + and - are right-
associative then the middle operand belongs to the
operator on its right (hence the name "to the right").

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• A left-associative operator may also be said to have
"left to right" associativity, and a right-associative
operator may also be said to have "right to left"
associativity. This is somewhat counter-intuitive
considering the above paragraph. To understand the
intuition behind these names consider the expression
1+2+3+4+5. If + is left-associative, the addition
operations are carried out left to right, i.e. the result is
(((1+2)+3)+4)+5. If + is right-associative, the addition
operations are carried out right to left, i.e. the result is
1+(2+(3+(4+5))).

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 Operator Precedence

postfix expr++ expr--

unary ++expr --expr
+expr -expr ~ !
multiplicative */%
additive +-
shift << >> >>>
relational < > <= >= instanceof
equality == !=
bitwise AND &
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 bitwise exclusive OR ^
bitwise inclusive OR |
logical AND &&
logical OR ||
ternary ?:
assignment = += -= *= /= %= &=
^= |= <<= >>= >>>=

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• An operator is a symbol that tells the compiler to
perform a specific mathematical or logical
manipulation.
• Java has four general classes of operators:
arithmetic, bitwise, relational and logical.

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• Arithmetic operators

Operator Meaning
+ Addition
- Subtraction
* Multiplication
/ Division
% Modulus
++ Increment
-- Decrement

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• Relational and Logical Operators

• Relational refers to the relationships that values can

have with one another, and logical refers to the ways
in which true and false values can be connected
together.
• Since the relational operators produce true or false
results, they often work with the logical operators.

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• The relational operators

Operator Meaning
== Equal to
!= Not equal to
> Greater than
< Less than
>= Greater than or
equal to
<= Less than or equal to

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• The logical operators

Operator Meaning
& AND
| OR
^ XOR(exclusive OR)
|| Short-circuit OR
&& Short-circuit AND
! NOT

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• Java supplies special short-circuit versions of its AND
and OR logical operators that can be used to produce
more efficient code.
• In an AND operation, if the first operand is false, the
outcome is false no matter what value the second
operand has.
• In an OR operation, if the first operand is true, the
outcome of the operation is true no matter what the
value of the second operand.
• Thus, in these two cases there is no need to evaluate
the second operand. By not evaluating the second
operand, time is saved and more efficient code is
produced.

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• The short-circuit AND operator is &&, and the short-
circuit OR operator is ||. Their normal counterparts
are & and |.
• The only difference between the normal and short-
circuit versions is that the normal operands will
always evaluate each operand, but short-circuit
versions will evaluate the second operand only when
necessary.

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