Difference between & and && in Java?

In Java, the & operator is a bitwise AND operator, and the && operator is a logical AND operator.

The difference between these operators is in the way they evaluate their operands.

The & operator evaluates both operands, regardless of their value. It then performs a bitwise AND operation on the operands and returns the result.

The && operator, on the other hand, evaluates its operands only if necessary. If the first operand is false, it returns false without evaluating the second operand. This is known as short-circuit evaluation.

Here is an example of how you can use the & and && operators in Java:

int x = 5;
int y = 6;

if ((x > 0) & (y > 0)) {  // both operands are evaluated
    System.out.println("Both x and y are positive.");
}

if ((x > 0) && (y > 0)) {  // second operand is not evaluated
    System.out.println("Both x and y are positive.");
}

In this example, both the & operator and the && operator are used in an if statement to check if both x and y are positive.

The first if statement uses the & operator, which evaluates both operands. If both operands are true, the statement is executed.

The second if statement uses the && operator, which evaluates the first operand and, if it is false, returns false without evaluating the second operand. If the first operand is true, it evaluates the second operand and, if it is also true, executes the statement.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions.