When shifting, the following occurs
-1 (right-hand side) is ANDed to 0x1f (00011111)
0xFFFFFFFF & 0x0000001F = 0x0000001F (i.e. 31)
summing up, shifting by -1 is equivalent to shifting by 31
HIH
------------------
Valentin Crettaz
Sun Certified Programmer for
Java 2 Platform