CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaeclipseencryptionxor
J. Bend
J. Bend

Reputation: 309

xor operation between chars

I have the following piece of Java code and while debugging in Eclipse, Windows 7, the variable 'xoredChar' shows no value at all, not null, not '', nothing.

char xoredChar = (char) (stringA.charAt(j)^stringB.charAt(j));

Why is that? I need to understand how can I do this xor operation between two characters in java. What am I missing?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 16956

Answers (3)

Harmlezz
Harmlezz

Reputation: 8068

As mentioned by the other answers, xoring the same characters results in a \0 value, which has no visual representation. Perhapse you are interested in a small application, which gives you and idea how XOR works on your strings:

public class Example {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String a = "abcde";
        String b = a;
        for (int idx = 0; idx < b.length(); idx++) {
            System.out.printf("xoring <%s> [%s] with <%s> [%s]\n",
                    a.charAt(0), toBinaryString(a.charAt(0)),
                    b.charAt(idx), toBinaryString(b.charAt(idx)));
            int c = (a.charAt(0) ^ b.charAt(idx));
            System.out.printf("result is <%s> [%s]\n",
                    (char) c, toBinaryString(c));
        }
    }
}

Have fun!

Upvotes: 0

Elliott Frisch
Elliott Frisch

Reputation: 201457

Well, if the strings are equal you'll get back a \0 which is not a printable character. Try something like this,

String stringA = "A";
String stringB = "A";
int j = 0;
char xoredChar = (char) (stringA.charAt(j) ^ stringB.charAt(j));
System.out.printf("'%c' = %d\n", xoredChar, (int) xoredChar);

Output is

' ' = 0

Upvotes: 3

Bathsheba
Bathsheba

Reputation: 234715

If stringA and stringB are identical, then the XOR operation will yield xoredChar = 0.

A 0 is probably showing in your IDE as nothing since 0 is used as a string terminator in most instances.

Upvotes: 0

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