Question

The contents of both of the following if blocks should be executed:

if( booleanFunction() || otherBooleanFunction() ) {...}
if( booleanFunction() | otherBooleanFunction() ) {...}

So what’s the difference between using | or using ||?

Note: I looked into this and found my own answer, which I included below. Please feel free to correct me or give your own view. There sure is room for improvement!

Answer 1

The logical operator works on booleans, and the bitwise operator works on bits. In this case, the effect is going to be the same, but there are two differences:

1. The bitwise operator is not meant for that, which makes it harder to read but most importantly
2. The logical OR operator will evaluate the first condition. If it’s true, it does not matter what the next condition results in, the result will be true, so the second clause is not executed

Here’s some handy code to prove this:

public class OperatorTest {

    public static void main(String[] args){
        System.out.println("Logical Operator:");
        if(sayAndReturn(true, "first") || sayAndReturn(true, "second")){
            //doNothing
        }

        System.out.println("Bitwise Operator:");
        if(sayAndReturn(true, "first") | sayAndReturn(true, "second")){
            //doNothing
        }
    }

    public static boolean sayAndReturn(boolean ret, String msg){
        System.out.println(msg);
        return ret;
    }
}