What are the cases in which it is better to use unconditional AND (& instead of &&)

Question

I\'d like to know some cases in Java (or more generally: in programming) when it is preferred in boolean expressions to use the unconditional AND (&

Answer 1

If the expression are trivial, you may get a micro-optimisation by using & or | in that you are preventing a branch. ie.

if(a && b) { }
if(!(a || b)) { }

is the same as

if (a) if (b) { }
if (!a) if (!b) { }

which has two places a branch can occur.

However using an unconditional & or |, there can be only one branch.

Whetehr this helps or not is highly dependant on what the code is doing.

If you use this, I sugegst commenting it to make it very clear why it has been done.