What does the |= operator do in Java?

Question

While reading the Android guide to Notifications, I stumbled across this:

Adding vibration

You can alert the user with th

Answer 1

It is a short hand notation for performing a bitwise OR and an assignment in one step.

x |= y is equivalent to x = x | y

This can be done with many operators, for example:

x += y
x -= y
x /= y
x *= y
etc.

An example of the bitwise OR using numbers.. if either bit is set in the operands the bit will be set in the result. So, if:

x = 0001 and
y = 1100 then
--------
r = 1101