How would this expression be evaluated? - java

Consider the following expression:
!true || false && true || false
This evaluates to false, but what I want to know is how java goes through the operations. I'm aware of the order in terms of precedence, where ! (not) has the highest precedence, followed by && (and) then || (or).
There are a few ways I can see it being evaluated:
(!true) || (false && true) || false
!(true || false) && (true || false)
!(true || (false && true) || false)

You correctly pointed the operator precedence docs, and it derives from the same docs that neither 2nd, nor 3rd option can be correct. Second breaks both ! and && precedence rules, and third one breaks the ! precedence rule.
First option is closest to the way Java does it, but Java will also short-circuit && and || operators (evaluates only to the point where definitive answer can be given - that is first true for || and first false for &&). So in false && true it will only evaluate first condition (false) and skip the rest.

Related

sequence of actions in the logical expression

I want to ask about correct sequence "reading" of this logical expression:
(true && false | true)
I thought it returns false, because of first expression - true && false
But probably I'm doing something wrong and it's should be "reading" another way.
Can you explain what's correct way to reading it?
By keeping below the point in the notice:
All binary operators except for the assignment operators are evaluated from left to right; assignment operators are evaluated right to left.
This will be get executed from left to right. After that 2nd point to consider is Operator Precedence.
| is a bitwise operator and && is a logical operation. the bitwise operator has more priority than the logical operator.
In your case, the first evaluation will be false | true which is true.
then it will evaluate the true && result of above which is true.
so the given statement will be true.
Check the following table of Operators Precedence.
| (bitwise inclusive OR) has higher precedence than && (logical AND), so false | true is evaluated first.
That said, the evaluation order doesn't matter in your example. Both (true && false) | true and true && (false | true) return true. In the first case it's false | true), which is true. In the second case it's true && true, which is also true.
Now, here's an example where the operator precedence makes a difference:
System.out.println (false && true | true);
System.out.println (false && true || true);
| has a higher precedence than &&, but && has a higher precedence than ||.
Therefore these expressions are evaluated as:
System.out.println (false && (true | true));
System.out.println ((false && true) || true);
As a result, the first returns false and the second returns true.

Java: Short-circuting && after OR

I understand && and || are short circuited in Java (whereas & and | are not)
However, I do not understand why the following code (which starts off with short circuited OR but ends with && condition) is also short circuited:
String x, y;
if ( x.contains("this") || x.contains("that") && y.contains("something else")!= true)
I would think that even if condition x.contains("this") evaluates to true the program will still need to evaluate the last condition y.contains("something else") != true because there's the && operator before the last condition. But apparently this isn't the case.
Can anyone explain why?
Two factors are in play here to determine the order of evaluation:
Operation precedence, and
Short-circuiting rules
Since && has higher precedence than ||, operator && "stays closer to its operands", so your expression is parsed as follows:
Because both && and || operators are left-to-right associative*, Java evaluates this expression left-to-right, stopping as soon as it determines the outcome. In case the string contains "this" substring, evaluation stops without evaluating the &&.
Note: If you are not sure of the order of operations, you can always force the order that you want by parenthesizing parts of your predicate. If the expression is not entirely obvious to you, good chances are that it is going to be non-obvious to other readers, so adding some extra parentheses is a good idea.
* Some operators are right-to-left associative. For example, assignment operator a[i] = b + c evaluates b + c before evaluating a[i]. Thanks T.J. Crowder for a great comment.
This is because of operator precedence.
The equivalent form of your (a || b && c) is (a || (b && c))
Cf. https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/nutsandbolts/operators.html
...even if condition x.contains("this") evaluates to true the program will still need to evaluate the last condition y.contains("something else") != true...
Nope. :-) The operands to the || in that expression are
x.contains("this")
and
x.contains("that") && y.contains("something else")!= true
...because && has higher precedence than || (details). So if you have a || b && c, it's a || (b && c) (just like a + b * c is a + (b * c) rather than (a + b) * c). The precedence defines how the operands are grouped.
If you want the expression grouped differently, you can use () to group it.
if ( (x.contains("this") || x.contains("that")) && y.contains("something else")!= true)
It has to do with operator precedence. Most standard operators are binary, that is they take two inputs and produce an output. Whenever you have an expression with more than two operators, the compiler uses precedence and associativity rules to figure out how to transform that expression into one where it's clear what inputs each operations has.
In your case, you have an expression like A || B && C. && has higher precedence than ||, so the compiler will interpret it as A || (B && C), not like (A || B) && C, which you might get at by just looking at the expression.
This means that it's enough for A to be true for the whole expression to be true.
This is the way the syntax works in java as the && operations are grouped before the || opertaion, therefore when it reads the equation (A || B && C) it only see's comparing A || D (where D is really B && C). So when A is evaluated as True, it doesn't even need to evaluate B && C.
Refer to this link for further syntax related questions on the order of operations
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/nutsandbolts/operators.html
&& is an operator with a higher precedence than ||.
Operators with higher precedence are evaluated before operators with lower precedence.
So here :
if ( x.contains("this") || x.contains("that") && y.contains("something else")!= true)
These two expressions are evaluated together :
x.contains("that") && y.contains("something else")!= true
So you get a conditional statement with a form such as :
if (something || somethingElse)
something is true, so somethingElse is never evaluated.
And the whole conditional statement is true.
Java have some operator precedence. You need to understand it to work with it.
First of all
In your if statement, you have two logical operators: || and &&.You know about short circuited. But you need to know that the &&operator will run first than ||.
AND operator (&&)
The && operator will, first, verify the left condition. There's no need to check two of them, to && return true, if the first one is true, then he can check the second.
OR operator (||)
The || operator will execute right after &&. It will verify if the two conditions return false, for this reason he needs to verify both.
Parentheses
You should know, but to make it work the way you want, you need to use parentheses (). To do it in the way you need, use () to present a new rule to your if statement:
if ( (x.contains("this") || x.contains("that")) && y.contains("something else")!= true)

Confusing example about '&&' and '||' precedence

I was testing the precedence between && and || and I had an example that was confusing. In Java, && has higher operator precedence than the operator ||.
So if we have those 3 expressions:
//expr1 = true , expr2 = false; expr3 = false;
if(expr1 || expr2 && expr3);
It should be evaluated as:
if(expr1 || (expr2 && expr3));
So expr2 && expr3 should be evaluated before expr1. However, this example:
int a1 = 10;
int a2 = 20;
System.out.println(a1 < a2 || ++a1 > a2 && ++a2 < a1);
System.out.println(a1);
System.out.println(a2);
Outputs:
true
10
20
That proves that only a1 < a2 is evaluated.
Can you explain why this is the case?
The expression is short-circuiting. From the link:
when the first argument of the AND function evaluates to false, the overall value must be false; and when the first argument of the OR function evaluates to true, the overall value must be true.
It sees that the rest of the condition doesn't matter because one of the operands of || is already true (10 < 20). If one of the operands is true, then no matter what the rest of the condition is, it's true.
You may use bitwise & and | to prevent this.
But, the ( expr2 && expr3 ) should be evaluated before expr1, no ?
No. You have to separate concepts of precedence and evaluation order.
Precedence: Dictates the parenthesization of an expression, not the order in which an expression is evaluated. For an example:
true || false && false
Is parenthesized to this because && has higher precedence than ||:
true || (false && false)
This does not mean that things in parentheses is evaluated first in Java's case. Precedence just clarifies what the operands of an operator are, in this case false and false, where as in this case:
(true || false) && (false || false)
The operands for && are true and false, not false and false.
Evaluation Order: Describes in what order each operand is evaluated and operator is applied and is sometimes language specific. This dictates how an expression is evaluated, unlike precedence.
In this case, your example:
true || false && false
As established earlier, becomes this due to precedence:
true || (false && false)
But Java, unlike C++, JavaScript, or a number of other languages has a strictly left to right evaluation. Per the Java Language Specification:
15.7. Evaluation Order
The Java programming language guarantees that the operands of operators appear to be evaluated in a specific evaluation order, namely, from left to right.
15.7.1. Evaluate Left-Hand Operand First
The left-hand operand of a binary operator appears to be fully evaluated before any part of the right-hand operand is evaluated.
So, when you have:
true || (false && false)
Java first evaluates the left operand which turns out to be true. Then the whole condition short circuits. The right operand of || in the parentheses is never evaluated at all. The same goes for your other example:
a1 < a2 || (++a1 > a2 && ++a2 < a1)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Step 0, precedence and parenthesization
a1 < a2 || (++a1 > a2 && ++a2 < a1)
^^^^^^^
Step 1, left operand evaluated, variables resolved to values 10 and 20, condition is true
true || (++a1 > a2 && ++a2 < a1)
^^^^
Step 2, short circuits, left operand is not evaluated
Take another more complex example:
false || false || true && (false || true) || false
Due to precedence, it becomes:
false || false || (true && (false || true)) || false
Then, evaluation begins, left to right:
false || false || (true && (false || true)) || false
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Step 1, false || false, does not short circuit, right operand is evaluated, is false
false || (true && (false || true)) || false
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Step 2, false || (true && (false || true)), does not short circuit, right operand is evaluated
Step 2A, (true && (false || true)), does not short circuit, right operand is evaluated
Step 2B, (false || true), does not short circuit, right operand is evaluated, is true
Step 2C, (true && true), does not short circuit, right operand is evaluated, is true
Step 2D, false || true, does not short circuit, right operand is evaluated, is true
true || false
^^^^
Step 3, true || false short circuits, right operand is not evaluated, is true
Thus the whole expression evaluates to true. The whole expression was evaluated left to right the whole way through. Precedence only dictated the operands of an operator via parenthesization, not the evaluation order.
Further reading at Eric Lippert's explanatory article on precedence vs associativity vs evaluation order as mentioned by Daniel Pryden, it clears up a lot of the confusion.
The main takeaway is that precedence does not dictate in what an expression is evaluated. It only dictates how an expression should be parenthesized. Evaluation order, on the other hand, tells us exactly how an expression is evaluated, and in Java's case is always left to right.
The first line prints true because of short-circuiting the || operator.
a1 < a2 is true and so the rest of the boolean expression doesn't need to be evaluated and true is returned.
expr2 should be evaluated before expr1
is incorrect, as operator precedence affects the structure of the expression, rather then the evaluation order (in most cases). If you were to re-order the expression so that it was (expr2 && expr3) || expr1, then yes, expr2 would be evaluated before expr1
Precedence:
boolean result = a || b && c
In order to have the correct value according to the rules of precedence, the compiler must logically evaluate this as:
boolean x = b && c
boolean result = a || x
This speaks to your point that b && c must be evaluated before result can be calculated. However, in Boolean algebra, it is possible to write expressions whose results do not depend on all the operands. This fact is exploited to enable a compiler optimization called short circuiting.
Short Circuiting:
For any Boolean expression:
a || b
the result does not depend on b if a evaluates to true. When a is true, it does not matter if b evaluates to true or false. Because of this, the compiler executes:
a || b && c
as if it had been written:
boolean result = a;
if (!a) result = b && c;
Note that executed this way, the rules of precedence are still respected. The expression is not evaluated as (a || b) && c. Since the overall result of the expression does not depend on (b && c) in the case where a is true, b && c is simply never evaluated.
This is a good thing. Short circuiting allows you to write correct programs when the correctness of one operand depends on the correctness of another. For example:
if (myString == null || !myString.isEmpty() && myString != "break") return;
Without short circuit evaluation, the boolean expression could throw a NullPointerException. However, because of short circuit evaluation, this expression, as written, can never throw a NullPointerException.
Short circuiting can also be used as a performance optimization. If evaluating one operand is extremely expensive, evaluating another first can save the execution time needed to evaluate an operand whose value does not influence the final result of the whole expression.
Even when you use explicit parentheses as in
if (expr1 || (expr2 && expr3))
expr1 is evaluated first, since the operands of operators are evaluated from left to right. Since || is a short circuited operator, the second operand ((expr2 && expr3) in your case) will only be evaluated if expr1 is false.
When you remove the parentheses, the operator precedence only comes into play if expr1 is false. In that case the && operand will be evaluated before the || operator and its value will be the second operand of the || operator.
This is because of short-circuiting. Where the first expression is evaluated first and if it's able to derive the result as true then it concludes there & would not even go for rest of the expression.If the first expression results as false then the other condition will be checked and the outcome will be derived.
To know more on operator precedence. Please refer below.
https://introcs.cs.princeton.edu/java/11precedence/

Java If block with multiple statements

I have a question about IF clause in Java.
I have and expression:
if ((someObject != null & connectedToTheInternet) || operate) {
// some action
}
Is my logic right: if someObject != null equals to true and connectedToTheInternet equals false then we have (someObject != null & connectedToTheInternet) equals false and then we have the following block:
if (false || operate) {
// some action
}
And if operate equals true then // some action will be triggered?
Just a first note: logical AND operator is "&&" and not just "&" (bitwise AND).
Following, your answer is YES... JVM will run conditions following your thinking.
By the way, I suggest you to read something abot short-circuit of these operators: it can be interesting if you are learning.
For example if you have if (a && (b || c) and a==false, then JVM won't evaluate b or c conditions because false && ... will be always false.
The same in the case of if (a || b || c && d): if a==true then JVM will ignore the other parts and consider it as true because true || .... will be always true.
Yes. if-clauses are evaluated from left to right. If no parenthesis are used, && has precedence, even higher precedence has ! (not) - similar to multiplication (AND), addition (OR) and negative numbers (-) in math (e.g. "A && (B || C) != A && B || C == (A && B) ||C") - I recommend to use parenthesis if you are unsure. This makes it possible to combine != null checks and calls to methods in the same if statement (e.g., if (object!=null && object.dosomething())).
Btw. there is a difference between & and && (short-circuit), when & is used, the second condition gets evaluated even if the first is false already. When && is used, Java doesn't check the second condition if the first one is false as the whole term cannot be true anymore - this is only important when the second condition is not a boolean variable but a method (which gets called or not -> side effects; this "skipping" is called short-circuit). Same for || and | where the second operator might not get evaluated if the first is already true (in case of ||).
Normally only ||and && are used.
Just for completeness: & is also the bitwise AND operator in Java.
if (false || operate) {
// some action
}
If operate true then if block executing.

Does && operator really have greater precedence over || operator ? Look at the code

In Oracle Java Docs it is mentioned that && operator has higher precedence over || operator.
Please look at the following code:
class TestLogicalOperators
{
public static void main(String... args)
{
if(doFalse() || doTrue1() && doTrue2() )
{
System.out.println(true+" inside if");
}
}
static boolean doTrue1()
{
System.out.println("doTrue1");
return true;
}
static boolean doTrue2()
{
System.out.println("doTrue2");
return true;
}
static boolean doFalse()
{
System.out.println("doFalse");
return false;
}
}
The output is:
doFalse
doTrue1
doTrue2
true inside if
Now if && operator has higher precedence over || operator shouldn't the methods doTrue1() and doTrue2() be evaluated first before doFalse()?
No.
The && operator has precedence, insofar as the expression:
doFalse() || doTrue1() && doTrue2()
... can also be read as:
doFalse() || ( doTrue1() && doTrue2() ) (note the parenthesis).
It doesn't mean the && expression will be evaluated before, your expression is still evaluated left to right.
The || operator can be a shortcut (i.e. no evaluation of second operand), if the first operand is true.
See example below:
// no shortcut, evaluates (true && false) and returns false anyway
System.out.println(false || true && false);
// no shortcut, evaluates (true && true) and returns true
System.out.println(false || true && true);
// shortcut (see warning), evaluates true and disregards "&&" expression
System.out.println(true || false && false);
You are missunderstanding the documentation. It doesn´t mean that the && operator will get executed first, it just says that the conditions surrunding a && are precedence over an other condition with a lower precedence.
In your example you can notice that the compiler is checking the condition of the if statement from left to right.
If we would go straigt from left to right the condition would be: (note parenthesis)
if((doFalse() || doTrue1()) && doTrue2() )
{
//This means either doFalse or doTrue1 would be true and doTrue2 would be true
}
But since the precedence of the && operator is higher then the on of the || operator it is read correctly as
if(doFalse() || (doTrue1() && doTrue2()))
{
//This correctly means either doFalse is true or doTrue1 and doTrue2 are true
}
NO, Normally first condition of OR operation is executed first. Which if evaluated to false, further checks second condition.
Otherwise it doesn't.
Operator && has preference over || but evaluation from left to right is still present and has precedende over operators as described in JLS §15.7
The Java programming language guarantees that the operands of operators appear to be evaluated in a specific evaluation order, namely, from left to right.

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