BigInteger +- operations?

Question

Is it possible to do +- operations like this somehow?

BigInteger a = new BigInteger("1");
BigInteger b = new BigInteger("2");
BigInteger result;

a+=b;
//result = a.add(b);

See here http://stackoverflow.com/questions/77718/java-operator-overload — juergen d, Feb 22 '12 at 14:21

NPE · Answer 1 · 2012-02-22T14:56:59.817

4

In a word, no. There is no operator overloading in Java, and BigInteger is not one of the special types for which there is compiler magic to support operators such as + and +=.

edited Feb 22 '12 at 14:56

answered Feb 22 '12 at 14:22

NPE

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Again immutability is not a reason for not having language support for the arithmetic operators. `String` is also immutable and there is language support for the `+=` operator. E.g.: `String foo = "foo"; foo += "bar";` You're changing the reference `foo`, not the contents of the object it points to. – SimonC Feb 22 '12 at 14:48

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 22 '12 at 14:21

3

Unfortunately not. Operator overloading is not supported in the Java language. The syntax only works for the other numeric primitive wrappers via auto-boxing, which wouldn't make sense for BigInteger as there's no equivalent primitive.

answered Feb 22 '12 at 14:21

SimonC

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 22 '12 at 14:22

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Nope. BigIntegers are immutable, so you can't change the value of a after creating it. And the usual mathematical operators don't work on them either, so you can't do a += b either.

You'd need to do what you have commented-out there -- result = a.add(b);

answered Feb 22 '12 at 14:22

Jim Kiley

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Immutability is irrelevant to the question. Primitives are immutable too, but you can use the arithmetic operations with them. – SimonC Feb 22 '12 at 14:34

BigInteger +- operations?

3 Answers3