What does the ^ operator do in Java?

Question

What function does the ^ (caret) operator serve in Java?

When I try this:

int a = 5^n;

...it gives me:

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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

Answer 3

It's bitwise XOR, Java does not have an exponentiation operator, you would have to use Math.pow() instead.

Answer 4

You can use Math.pow instead:

https://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.5.0/docs/api/java/lang/Math.html#pow%28double,%20double%29

Answer 5

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) .

Answer 6

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.