[Solved] Bitwise shift operation choice

Question

The reason it works this way is because C and C++ used << for left shift and >> for right shift long before Java. Those languages have both signed and unsigned types, and for signed types the sign bit was propagated in the right-shift case.

Java does not have unsigned types, so they kept the behavior of C and C++ so as not to sow confusion and incur the undying wrath of developers the world over. Then they included >>> to provide a right-shift that treated the bit value as unsigned.

Accepted Answer

The reason it works this way is because C and C++ used << for left shift and >> for right shift long before Java. Those languages have both signed and unsigned types, and for signed types the sign bit was propagated in the right-shift case.

Java does not have unsigned types, so they kept the behavior of C and C++ so as not to sow confusion and incur the undying wrath of developers the world over. Then they included >>> to provide a right-shift that treated the bit value as unsigned.