Operators in Java are special symbols those perform specific operations on one, two, or three operands, and then return a result
Arithmetic Operators
Relational Operators
Bitwise Operators
Logical Operators
Assignment Operators
Unary Operators
Misc Operators
Arithmetic Operators
You can combine the arithmetic operators with the simple assignment operator to create compound assignments. For example, x+=1; and x=x+1; both increment the value of x by 1.
| Operator | Description |
| + | Additive operator (also used for String concatenation) |
| - | Subtraction operator |
| * | Multiplication operator |
| / | Division operator |
| % | Remainder operator |
Relational Operators
The relational operators determine if one operand is greater than, less than, equal to, or not equal to another operand.
Table shows all relation operators supported by Java.
| operator | description |
| == | Check if two operand are equal |
| != | Check if two operand are not equal. |
| > | Check if operand on the left is greater than operand on the right |
| < | Check operand on the left is smaller than right operand |
| >= | check left operand is greater than or equal to right operand |
| <= | Check if operand on left is smaller than or equal to right operand |
Logical operators
Java supports following 3 logical operator. Suppose a=1 and b=0;
| operator | description | example |
| && | Logical AND | (a && b) is false |
| || | Logical OR | (a || b) is true |
| ! | Logical NOT | (!a) is false |
Bitwise operators
Java defines several bitwise operators that can be applied to the integer types long, int, short, char and byte
| operator | description |
| & | Bitwise AND |
| | | Bitwise OR |
| ^ | Bitwise exclusive OR |
| << | left shift |
| >> | right shift |
Assignment Operators
One of the most common operators that you'll encounter is the simple assignment operator "=", it assigns the value on its right to the operand on its left:
| operator | description | example |
| = | assigns values from right side operands to left side operand | a=b |
| += | adds right operand to the left operand and assign the result to left | a+=b is same as a=a+b |
| -= | subtracts right operand from the left operand and assign the result to left operand | a-=b is same as a=a-b |
| *= | mutiply left operand with the right operand and assign the result to left operand | a*=b is same as a=a*b |
| /= | divides left operand with the right operand and assign the result to left operand | a/=b is same as a=a/b |
| %= | calculate modulus using two operands and assign the result to left operand | a%=b is same as a=a%b |
Unary Operators
The unary operators require only one operand;
| Operator | Description |
| + | 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 boolean |
Miscellaneous Operators
Conditional Operator ( ? : )
| Operator | Description |
| ? : | It is called ternary operator, is checks a condition similar like if else |
| Instanceof | The instanceof operator compares the object with a class. |
Conditional operator is also known as the ternary operator. This operator consists of three operands and is used to evaluate Boolean expressions. The goal of the operator is to decide, which value should be assigned to the variable. The operator is written as −
variable x = (expression) ? value if true : value if false
Java has well-defined rules for specifying the order in which the operators in an expression are evaluated when the expression has several operators. An order in which the operators in an expression are evaluated called operator precedence. Precedence rules can be overridden by explicit parentheses.
The operators in the following table are listed according to precedence order. The closer to the top of the table an operator appears, the higher its precedence.
| Operator | Description | Level | Associativity |
| [] . () ++ -- | access array element access object member invoke a method post-increment post-decrement | 1 | left to right |
| ++ -- + - ! ~ | pre-increment pre-decrement unary plus unary minus logical NOT bitwise NOT | 2 | right to left |
| () | new cast object creation | 3 | right to left |
| * / % | multiplicative | 4 | left to right |
| + - + | additive string concatenation | 5 | left to right |
| << >> >>> | shift | 6 | left to right |
| < <= > >= | instanceof relational type comparison | 7 | left to right |
| == != | equality | 8 | left to right |
| & | bitwise AND | 9 | left to right |
| ^ | bitwise XOR | 10 | left to right |
| | | bitwise OR | 11 | left to right |
| && | conditional AND | 12 | left to right |
| || | conditional OR | 13 | left to right |
| ?: | conditional | 14 | right to left |
| = += -= *= /= %= &= ^= |= <<= >>= >>>= | assignment | 15 | right to left |