What is the difference between using and and and and in Java?

Answer 1

'&&' is used for short-circuiting boolean expressions, which means that it will stop evaluating if the first operant is false but '&' won't.

This can be easier understood with an example:

int i = 0;

if( i < 10 && i++ < 20)

{

//some fancy stuff in here

}

first operant: i < 5

second operant: i++ < 20

In this case (using '&&'), if the first operant is evaluated to be false, it will stop and does not continue to evaluate the second operant.

If '&&' was replaced by '&,' even if the first operation is evaluated as false. It will still continue to evaluate the second operant before evaluating that the whole boolean is false, thus taking more time.