Difference between && and &, || and |

Introduction

Hello everyone, in this article we will learn a very important and basic part of the AND and OR operators. It is not dependent on the language; it’s just logic and optimization. As the title of the article suggests, it’s all about two and and single and or two or and single or operators. So let’s start.

Difference between && and & 

&& is called the AND operator and & is also called the AND operator but the basic difference between them is in the way they are executed. The syntax for && and & the same as in the following:

• bool_exp1 && bool_exp2
• bool_exp1 & bool_exp2

Now the syntax of 1 and 2 looks  similar to each other but the way they will execute is entirely different.

In the first statement, first bool_exp1 will be executed and then the result of this expression decides the execution of the other statement. If it is false then the AND will be false so it makes no sense to execute the other statement. The bool_exp2 statement is executed if and only if bool_exp1 returns true on execution. It is also known as the short circuit operator because it shorts the circuit (statement) on the basis of the first expression’s result. Let’s understand this using an example.

int x = 0;
if (5 < 4 && (7 / x) == 0)
 MessageBox.Show("Won't execute!");
else
{
 MessageBox.Show("&& wont execute the 7/0 so no divide by zero error.");
}

The output of the code above is:

Now in the case of & things are different. The compiler will execute both statements and then the result will be ANDed. It’s an inefficient way of doing things because it makes no sense to execute the other statement if one is false because the result of AND is effective only for ANDing results evaluated to “true” and it’s possible when both statements are true.

Example:

int x = 0;
if (5 < 4 &  (7 / x) == 0)
MessageBox.Show("Won't execute!");
else
{
MessageBox.Show("&& wont execute the 7/0 so no divide by zero error.");
}

Output:

Difference between “||” and “|”

It’s the same as above, in the case of “||” only one statement is executed and if it returns “true” then the other statement will not be executed. But if the first is false then the other will be checked for the value “true”. The reason for this is the way the “or” operator works. The “Or” operator depends on only one true, in other words if any of the expressions are true then the result will be true.

Example:

int x = 0;
if (5 > 4 || (7 / x) == 0)
  MessageBox.Show("|| executed because 5>4 evaluates to true.No divide by zero error.");
else
{
 MessageBox.Show("Won't execute!");
}

Output:

That’s OK but the way “|” behaves is the same as that of “&”, in other words both statements are executed regardless of the result of one statement. Check the following example and it will be clear.

int x = 0;
if (5 > 4 | (7 / x) == 0)
MessageBox.Show("|| executed because 5>4 evaluates to true.No divide by zero error.");
else
{
  MessageBox.Show("Won't execute!");
}

Output:

Summary

Thanks for reading this article.  This article is just for information purposes, I won’t recommend anyone to use “&” or “|” instead of “&&” or  “||”. Don’t forget to comment and share this article. 

Edit 1 

As pointed out by Klaus Luedenscheidt in comment, This article doesn't deal with  the original use of '&' and '|' . These operators are very useful in performing bitwise operations. And also you can not use '&&' and '||' for performing bitwise operations. I guess this is the only reason for their existence.   

A sort example : 

printf("%d",4&5); //will print  4 because.

00001000  //4 in binary  
00001001 //5 in binary
________ // Perform & (anding of bits) 
00001000 //4 in binary  

printf("%d",4|5); //will print  5 because 

00001000  //4 in binary   
00001001 //5 in binary  
________ // Perform & ('Or'ing of bits) 
00001001 //5 in binary