The Simple Assignment OperatorOne of the most common operators that you'll encounter is the simple assignment operator "
=
". You saw this operator in the Bicycle class; it assigns the value on its right to the operand on its left:int cadence = 0; int speed = 0; int gear = 1;This operator can also be used on objects to assign object references, as discussed in Simple Data Objects.
The Arithmetic Operators
The Java programming language provides operators that perform addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. There's a good chance you'll recognize them by their counterparts in basic mathematics. The only symbol that might look new to you is "
%
", which divides one operand by another and returns the remainder as its result.The following program,+ additive operator (also used for String concatenation) - subtraction operator * multiplication operator / division operator % remainder operatorArithmeticDemo
, tests the arithmetic operators.You can also combine the arithmetic operators with the simple assignment operator to create compound assignments. For example,class ArithmeticDemo { public static void main (String[] args){ int result = 1 + 2; // result is now 3 System.out.println(result); result = result - 1; // result is now 2 System.out.println(result); result = result * 2; // result is now 4 System.out.println(result); result = result / 2; // result is now 2 System.out.println(result); result = result + 8; // result is now 10 result = result % 7; // result is now 3 System.out.println(result); } }x+=1;
andx=x+1;
both increment the value ofx
by 1.The
+
operator can also be used for concatenating (joining) two strings together, as shown in the followingConcatDemo
program:By the end of this program, the variableclass ConcatDemo { public static void main(String[] args){ String firstString = "This is"; String secondString = " a concatenated string."; String thirdString = firstString+secondString; System.out.println(thirdString); } }thirdString
contains "This is a concatenated string.", which gets printed to standard output.The Unary Operators
The unary operators require only one operand; they perform various operations such as incrementing/decrementing a value by one, negating an expression, or inverting the value of a boolean.
+ Unary plus operator; indicates positive value (numbers are positive without this, however) - Unary minus operator; negates an expression ++ Increment operator; increments a value by 1 -- Decrement operator; decrements a value by 1 ! Logical complement operator; inverts the value of a booleanThe following program,
UnaryDemo
, tests the unary operators:
The increment/decrement operators can be applied before (prefix) or after (postfix) the operand. The codeclass UnaryDemo { public static void main(String[] args){ int result = +1; // result is now 1 System.out.println(result); result--; // result is now 0 System.out.println(result); result++; // result is now 1 System.out.println(result); result = -result; // result is now -1 System.out.println(result); boolean success = false; System.out.println(success); // false System.out.println(!success); // true } }result++;
and++result;
will both end inresult
being incremented by one. The only difference is that the prefix version (++result
) evaluates to the incremented value, whereas the postfix version (result++
) evaluates to the original value. If you are just performing a simple increment/decrement, it doesn't really matter which version you choose. But if you use this operator in part of a larger expression, the one that you choose may make a significant difference.The following program,
PrePostDemo
, illustrates the prefix/postfix unary increment operator:class PrePostDemo { public static void main(String[] args){ int i = 3; i++; System.out.println(i); // "4" ++i; System.out.println(i); // "5" System.out.println(++i); // "6" System.out.println(i++); // "6" System.out.println(i); // "7" } }