Question

I have often looked at API say the android api where you can add a pipe between arguments to combine them. Say *CENTER_VERTICAL|CENTER_HORIZONTAL*. How is this done ? Can anyone show me an example where i can pass multiple arguments to a function chained as above ? How do i read them ?

Kind Regards

Answer 1

The vertical bar is actually a bitwise OR, so the method only works when the arguments are “flags” or bit fields.

e.g.

private static final int FLAG1 = 0x01;
private static final int FLAG2 = 0x02;

callFunc(FLAG1|FLAG2); // (passes 0x03)

If the args are just “any old int”, it probably wont do what you think:

e.g.

callFunc(0x03|0x01); // passes 0x03 - so the 0x01 does nothing.