Bitwise negation gives unexpected result

Question

I am trying to write a bitwise calculator in java, something that you could input an expression such as ~101 and it would give back 10 however when i run this code

Answer 1

Just to elaborate on Edwin's answer a bit - if you're looking to create a variable length mask to develop the bits of interest, you might want some helper functions:

/**
 * Negate a number, specifying the bits of interest.
 * 
 * Negating 52 with an interest of 6 would result in 11 (from 110100 to 001011).
 * Negating 0 with an interest of 32 would result in -1 (equivalent to ~0).
 * 
 * @param number the number to negate.
 * @param bitsOfInterest the bits we're interested in limiting ourself to (32 maximum).
 * @return the negated number.
 */
public int negate(int number, int bitsOfInterest) {
    int negated = ~number;
    int mask = ~0 >>> (32 - bitsOfInterest);
    logger.info("Mask for negation is [" + Integer.toBinaryString(mask) + "]");
    return negated & mask;
}

/**
 * Negate a number, assuming we're interesting in negation of all 31 bits (exluding the sign).
 * 
 * Negating 32 in this case would result in ({@link Integer#MAX_VALUE} - 32).
 * 
 * @param number the number to negate.
 * @return the negated number.
 */
public int negate(int number) {
    return negate(number, 31);
}