Last Updated : 17 Mar 2025

Operators are an essential part of any programming language. In Java, operator is a symbol that is used to perform operations. For example: +, -, *, / etc. These are essential for performing different types of operations on variables and values. In this section, we will discuss different types of operators used in Java programming.

There are mainly eight types of operators in Java:

1. Unary Operator
2. Arithmetic Operator
3. Relational Operator
4. Ternary Operator
5. Assignment Operator
6. Bitwise Operator
7. Logical Operator
8. Shift Operator

Java Unary Operator

The Java unary operators require only one operand. Unary operators are used to perform various operations i.e. incrementing/decrementing a value by one, negating an expression and inverting the value of a Boolean. Observe the following table.

Java Unary Operator Example: ++ and --

Output:

10
-10

Java Unary Operator Example: Pre-increment and Post-increment

Output:

10
12

Java Unary Operator Example: Pre-decrement and Post-decrement

Output:

10
8

Java Unary Operator Example: Logical Complement Operator and Negation

Output:

-11
9
false
true

To read more: Unary Operators in Java

Java Arithmetic Operators

Java arithmetic operators are used to perform addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and modulo operation. They act as basic mathematical operations.

Java Arithmetic Operator Example

Output:

15
5
50
2
0

Java Arithmetic Operator Example: Expression

Output:

21

To read more: Arithmetic Operators in Java

Java Shift Operators

Java shift operator works on the bits of the data. It shifts the bits of the number from left to right or right to left. The following table shows the types of shift operator in Java.

Java Left Shift Operator

The Java left shift operator << is used to shift all of the bits in a value to the left side of a specified number of times.

Java Left Shift Operator Example

Output:

40
80
80
240

Java Right Shift Operator

The Java right shift operator >> is used to move the value of the left operand to right by the number of bits specified by the right operand.

Java Right Shift Operator Example

Output:

2
5
2

Java Shift Operator Example: >> vs >>> (Unsigned Shift)

Output:

5
5
-5
1073741819

To read more: Shift Operators in Java

Java Relational Operators

Java relational or conditional operators are used to check relationship between two operands such as less than, less than or equal to, greater than, greater than or equal to, equal to and not equal to. It is also known as equality operator. These operators return Boolean values either true or false.

Java Relational Operator Example

Output:

(a < b) : true
(a > b) : false
(a <= b) : true
(a >= b) : false
(a == b) : false
(a != b) : true

To read more: Relational Operators in Java

Java Bitwise Operators

Java bitwise operators are used to perform the manipulation of individual bits of a number and with any of the integer types. They are used when performing update and query operations of the Binary indexed trees.

Java Bitwise OR (|) Operator Example

Output:

The value of a | b is: 15

Java Bitwise AND (&) Operator Example

Output:

The value of a & b is: 1

Java Bitwise XOR (^) Operator Example

Output:

The value of a ^ b is: 14

Java Bitwise Complement Operator Example

Output:

The value of ~a is: -6

To read more: Bitwise Operators in Java

Java Logical Operators

Logical operators are used extensively in various programming languages to perform Logical NOT, OR and AND operations whose functionality is similar to OR gate and AND gate in the world of digital electronics.

Java Logical AND (&&) Operator Example

Output:

else block is executed.
The value of a is: 10

Java Logical OR (||) Operator Example

Output:

true
The value of a is: 10
true
The value of a is: 11

Java Logical NOT or Bitwise Complement (!)Operator Example

Output:

false
true

To read more: Logical Operators in Java

Java Ternary Operator

Java Ternary operator is used as one line replacement for if-then-else statement and used a lot in Java programming. It is the only conditional operator which takes three operands.

Java Ternary Operator Example

The following example checks the maximum between two numbers.

Output:

2

Let's see another example.

The following example illustrates to find the maximum between three numbers using ternary operator. Note that it uses the nesting of ternary operators.

Output:

The maximum between the three numbers 10, 15, 13 is: 15

Note: Though writing code using ternary operator takes less amount of code as compared to if-else statements, it is not always a good way to write code using ternary operator. Usually in complex logic or conditions, if-else statements take precedence over the ternary operator. Using ternary operator in complex logic makes the code difficult to understand.

To read more: Ternary Operators in Java

Java Assignment Operator

Java assignment operator is one of the most common operators. It is used to assign the value on its right to the operand on its left. The left operand has to be a variable and right operand contains value. Note that the data type of both the operands has to be of the same type. If not, an error will be raised by the compiler. The associativity of the assignment operators is form right to left, which means values on the right side of the operator is assigned to the left side.

Types of Assignment Operator

There are two types of assignment operators. They are:

• Simple Assignment operator: The simple assignment operator where only (=) is used.
• Compound Assignment operator: The compound assignment operator is used where -,+,/,* are used along with (=) operator.

The following table illustrates the working of the different assignment operators.

Java Assignment Operator Example

Output:

13
9
18
9
0

Note: In Java, the compound assignment operator performs implicit typecasting. The following program illustrates the same.

Java Assignment Operator Example: Adding Short

In this example, we have used the compound operator +=. Similarly, we can do for the other compound operators.

Output:

Compile time error

After Type Cast:

Output:

20

To read more: Assignment Operators in Java

Java Operator Precedence

Conclusion

Operators are a fundamental part of Java programming, enabling developers to perform various tasks ranging from simple arithmetic to complex bitwise operations. Understanding the different types of operators and their precedence is crucial for writing efficient and effective Java code. The section provides a comprehensive overview and practical examples to help you get started with using operators in Java.

Multiple Choice Questions

1) The output of relational operators is _______________.

1. Double
2. Characters
3. Integer
4. Boolean

2) Choose the odd one out of from the following.

1. |
2. &
3. -
4. ^

3) What will be the output of the following print statement?

System.out.println("The output is: " + (1 || true));

1. The output is: 1
2. The output is: true
3. Error
4. The output is: false

4) What will be the output of 5 << 2 in Java?

1. 1
2. 20
3. 5
4. None of these

5) Which operator one will choose to identify whether a number is even or odd using bitwise operations only?

1. &
2. |
3. ^
4. ~