Addition of byte values in Java
The byte data type in Java is a signed integer based on the two’s complement 8-bit mechanism. It is different from the int data type that uses 4 bytes (i.e., 32-bit to store a number). The values that can be stored in a single byte are -128 to 127. byte data types are primitive.
How it works
-
Two variables of type
byteare created and their values are declared. -
Both variables are then added and stored in another
bytetype variable. -
Additions are always typecasted.
The following code explains this process better:
class example {public static void main(String[] argv){byte a = 3;byte b = 8;byte result;result = (byte) (a + b); //addition typecastedSystem.out.println(result);}}
Byte overflow
Byte overflow is a problem that needs to be understood when dealing with bytes. If the result is greater than 127 or less than -128, then the byte variable overflows (i.e., it cannot contain the resulting value in a single byte). The remainder result is then displayed instead of the original result.
For example, 124 + 76 = 200. As we know, 200 cannot be stored in a single byte, so the resulting variable will now store -56 instead of 200. This happens because 200 - 256 (capacity of two bytes) is equal to - 56. Try this in the code above!
