What does the ^ operator do in Java?

Question

What function does the ^ (caret) operator serve in Java?

When I try this:

int a = 5^n;

...it gives me:

Answer 1

Lot many people have already explained about what it is and how it can be used but apart from the obvious you can use this operator to do a lot of programming tricks like

• XORing of all the elements in a boolean array would tell you if the array has odd number of true elements
• If you have an array with all numbers repeating even number of times except one which repeats odd number of times you can find that by XORing all elements.
• Swapping values without using temporary variable
• Finding missing number in the range 1 to n
• Basic validation of data sent over the network.

Lot many such tricks can be done using bit wise operators, interesting topic to explore.