What does << mean in Java?

Question

I can\'t find out what << means in Java because I can\'t search for it on Google - I am absolutely lost!

The code in question is:

Answer 1

It is the left shift operator. Here's some more information on shift operators from the Java Tutorial.

In your example code the three integer values: red, green and blue will typically have values 0-255. Hence, it is possible to combine these values and represent them as a single integer by shifting the red value by 16 bits, shifting the green value by 8 bits and then performing a bitwise-OR operation to combine the values.