What is &&& operation in C
>>>
is the logical right shift operator in Java.
It shifts in a zero on the left rather than preserving the sign bit. The author of the blog post even provides a C++ implementation:
mid = ((unsigned int)low + (unsigned int)high)) >> 1;
... if you right-shift unsigned numbers, preserving the sign bit doesn't make any sense (since there is no sign bit) so the compiler obviously uses logical shifts rather than arithmetic ones.
The above code exploits the MSB (32rd bit assuming 32 bit integers): adding low
and high
which are both nonnegative integers and fit thus into 31 bits never overflows the full 32 bits, but it extends to the MSB. By shifting it to the right, the 32 bit number is effectively divided by two and the 32rd bit is cleared again, so the result is positive.
The truth is that the >>>
operator in Java is just a workaround for the fact that the language does not provide unsigned
data types.
>>>
is not a part of C++. The blog contains code in Java.
Check out Java online tutorial here on Bitwise shift operators. It says
The unsigned right shift operator ">>>" shifts a zero into the leftmost position, while the leftmost position after ">>" depends on sign extension.
The >>>
operator is in a Java code snippet, and it is the unsigned right shift operator. It differs from the >>
operator in its treatment of signed values: the >>
operator applies sign extension during the shift, while the >>>
operator just inserts a zero in the bit positions "emptied" by the shift.
Sadly, in C++ there's no such thing as sign-preserving and unsigned right shift, we have only the >>
operator, whose behavior on negative signed values is implementation-defined. To emulate a behavior like the one of >>>
you have to perform some casts to unsigned int
before applying the shift (as shown in the code snippet immediately following the one you posted).