What's the difference between XOR and NOT-EQUAL-TO?

Question

My question uses Java as an example, but I guess it applies to probably all.

Is there any practical difference between the XOR operator (^ in Java) and

Answer 1

As stated in the Java Language Specification:

The result of != is false if the operands are both true or both false; otherwise, the result is true. Thus != behaves the same as ^ (§15.22.2) when applied to boolean operands.

In addition if you try looking at bytecode of a simple snippet:

void test(boolean b1, boolean b2) {
    boolean res1 = b1^b2;
    boolean res2 = b1!=b2;
}

you obtain:

test(ZZ)V
   L0
    LINENUMBER 45 L0
    ILOAD 1
    ILOAD 2
    IXOR
    ISTORE 3
   L1
    LINENUMBER 46 L1
    ILOAD 1
    ILOAD 2
    IXOR
    ISTORE 4
   L2
    LINENUMBER 47 L2
    RETURN
   L3

This assures that, in addition to the same semantics, there's no any actual practical difference in implementation. (you can also see that internally ints are used to store boolean values)