What is the difference between `bitCount()` and `bitLength()` of a `BigInteger`

Question

The descriptions of bitCount() and bitLength() are rather cryptic:

public int bitCount()

Returns the number of bits in th

Answer 1

A quick demonstration:

public void test() {
    BigInteger b = BigInteger.valueOf(0x12345L);
    System.out.println("b = " + b.toString(2));
    System.out.println("bitCount(b) = " + b.bitCount());
    System.out.println("bitLength(b) = " + b.bitLength());
}

prints

b = 10010001101000101

bitCount(b) = 7

bitLength(b) = 17

So, for positive integers:

bitCount() returns the number of set bits in the number.

bitLength() returns the position of the highest set bit i.e. the length of the binary representation of the number (i.e. log₂).