Java Program to Swap Two Numbers Using Bitwise XOR Operation

Given two numbers x and y. We have to write a Java Program to Swap the contents of two numbers using Bitwise XOR Operation.

Input 1: x = 5, y = 10
Output : x = 10, y = 5
Explanation :
1. x = x ^ y -> x = 15
2. y = x ^ y -> y = 5
3. x = x ^ y -> x = 10

Input 2: x = 15, y = 20
Output : x = 20, y = 15

The bitwise XOR operator(represented by ^) compares corresponding bits of two operands and returns 1 if they are equal and 0 if they are not equal.  Let’s say we have two numbers x and y, so what actually x^y will do is that it will compare every corresponding bit of x and y, and if they are different, it will generate 1 as the output of that two bits(one of x and one of y)  taken into consideration and if bits are same, then it will generate 0 as the output of two bits.

Below is the code implementation of the above approach:-

Java

// Java program to swap the elements using XOR Operator
import java.io.*;
class GFG {
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        int x = 5, y = 10;
        // binary equivalent of 5 is 0101
        // binary equivalent of 10 is 1010

        // binary equivalent of x  will become 1111 ie x=15
        x = x ^ y;
        // binary equivalent of y  will become 0101 ie y=5
        y = x ^ y;
        // binary equivalent of x  will become 1010 ie x=10
        x = x ^ y;
        System.out.println("The value of x is " + x
                           + " and the value of y is " + y);
    }
}

Output

The value of x is 10 and the value of y is 5