Bitwise Right Shift

March 28, 2023

Bitwise Right Shift Operator

Java supports two kinds of the bitwise right shift operators which are basically used to perform shift right operations on numbers.

Signed Right Shift (>>)
Unsigned Right Shift (>>>)

Signed Right Shift

The Bitwise Signed Right Shift Operator is used to shift the bits to the right of a given number number. It perform the task in three different subtasks:

It first convert the number into bits.
It then shifts the specified bits towards right.
Finally, it convert the these bits back to the number.

Run

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int x = 12;
        System.out.println("12 in binary form "+Integer.toBinaryString(x));
        int y = 2;
        int shift = x >> y;
        System.out.println("12 will become : " + shift+" in integer form");
        System.out.println("12 in binary form after performing right shift "+Integer.toBinaryString(shift));
    }
}

Output :

12 in binary form 1100
12 will become : 3 in integer form
12 in binary form after performing right shift 11

Explanation : In this example, the method main assigns the value 12 to an integer variable x, converts it to its binary representation using the Integer.toBinaryString method, and prints the result. Next, the code sets the value 2 for another integer variable, y. After that, the variable shift is computed by performing a right shift (>>) on the variable x with the number of positions specified bIn other words, by shifting the binary representation of x to the right by y positions, x is divided by 2y (2 raised to the power of y).ions. Finally, the right shift operation's result is printed in both integer and binary form.

Unsigned Right Shift

The Bitwise Unsigned Right Shift Operator is used to shift the bits to the right of a given number number and adds the equal number of zeros at the beginning, which means zero bits are moved in from the left while extra bits that were pushed off to the right are discarded. Since the sign bit is set to 0, the outcome is always positive.

Run

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int x = -12;
        System.out.println("-12 in binary form "+Integer.toBinaryString(x));
        int y = 2;
        int shift = x >>> y;
        System.out.println("-12 will become  : " + shift+" in integer form");
        System.out.println("-12 in binary form after performing unsingned right shift "+Integer.toBinaryString(shift));
    }
}

Output :

-12 in binary form 11111111111111111111111111110100
-12 will become  : 1073741821 in integer form
-12 in binary form after performing unsingned right shift 111111111111111111111111111101

Explanation : The program starts by declaring an integer variable x and initialising it with the value of -12. Then, it converts the integer value of -12 to its binary representation using the Integer.toBinaryString method and prints it to the console.
Next, the program declares an integer variable y and initializes it with the value of 2. This value will be used as the number of positions to shift the bits of x to the right.
The program then uses the unsigned right shift operator (>>>) to perform the shift operation. The result of this operation is stored in the variable "shift".
Finally, the program prints the integer value of the shifted number "shift" and its binary representation using the Integer.toBinaryString method.

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Bitwise Right Shift