Explain the code...

I was just trying out a code as below

public class Flip{
public static void main(String argv[]){
System.out.println(~4);
}
}

And i get the result as -5.

Kindly explain me how does it happen?

The tilde "~" inverts the bits ( 0 to 1 and 1 to 0)
More here
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/java/nutsandbolts/op3.html

Thanks for the reply!!!

But still under confusion,as where does this invertion come into action...
If i replace the number in the code to 5 or 6 or 7,the output gives a +1 to the number with a negative sign.

For eg: if i replace it with say 6 now...
I get the output as -7

sharmistha mohapatra wrote:

If i replace the number in the code to 5 or 6 or 7,the output gives a +1 to the number with a negative sign.

For eg: if i replace it with say 6 now...
I get the output as -7

Yes, That's an easy way to calculate the result without trying it in two's complement way (which is what happens internally).

There are two thing you need to understand

1) the '~' inverts all the bits. Since a '4' is represented as

00000000 00000000 00000000 00000100

when you invert the bits you get

11111111 11111111 11111111 11111011

2) now you need to understand how java interprets this value. google or search this forum for "two's complement". basically, you look a the left-most digit, and if it's a 1, you know your value will be negative. you then invert all the digits and add one, so you get

which is 5. and we know our answer is negative, so "11111111 11111111 11111111 11111011" = -5.