Java's +=, -=, *=, /= compound assignment operators

Until today I thought that for example:

i += j;

is just a shortcut for:

i = i + j;

But what if we try this:

int i = 5;
long j = 8;

Then i = i + j; will not compile but i += j; will compile fine. Does it mean that in fact i += j; is a shortcut for something like this

i = (type of i) (i + j)

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This answer is accepted

A good example of this casting is using *= or /=

 byte b = 10;
b *= 5.7;
System.out.println(b); // prints 57

byte b = 100;
b /= 2.5;
System.out.println(b); // prints 40

char ch = '0';
ch *= 1.1;
System.out.println(ch); // prints '4'

char ch = 'A';
ch *= 1.5;
System.out.println(ch); // prints 'a'

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Posted on:16 Sep '16 - 07:37

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