What does the operator do?

Question

at Random.java I found the lines:
synchronized protected int next(int bits) {
long nextseed = (seed * multiplier + addend) & mask;
seed = nextseed;
return (int)(nextseed >>> (48 - bits));
I could not figure out what >>> meas, and when I tried to write
this operetor but in the opposite direction it is a compile time error
why?
(it seam that its similar for >> which moves the bits rightward.)

Answer 1

The gods of Sun decree that it is the unsigned right
shift operator.Yup. To explain that further, that means that when you use >>> instead of >>, the sign bit won't be extended. In a signed number, the most significant bit is the sign bit (1=negative, 0=positive). Here's an example:
    int num = -64;
    int rS  = num >> 3;
    int rU  = num >>> 3;
    System.out.println("Number: " + Integer.toBinaryString(num) + " (" + num + ")");
    System.out.println(">> 3:   " + Integer.toBinaryString(rS) + " (" + rS + ")");
    System.out.println(">>> 3:  " + Integer.toBinaryString(rU) + " (" + rU + ")");Jason