Java Byte as repeating counter best practice

Question

I want to use a var of type byte to implement a counter which counts from 0 to 255 and starts again by 0. What's the best method to increment a byte just by 1, is it possible to do it without type casting? Is there a method which resets 0xff to 0x00 automatically when adding +1 ?

please give the reasosn you use byte instead of Integer for this — Scott 混合理论
– Scott 混合理论, Commented Nov 23, 2013 at 14:02
Remember that the byte type in Java is signed - it represents -128 to +127, not 0 to 255. — Ian Roberts
– Ian Roberts, Commented Nov 23, 2013 at 14:10
it's kind of homework where we need to implement it as byte... if I could decide this by my own, I would use C as mentioned ;) — Karl Adler
– Karl Adler, Commented Nov 23, 2013 at 14:47
I found a way to display the binary representation of bytes and it seems to be that a simple ++ operator does exactly what I want. — Karl Adler
– Karl Adler, Commented Nov 23, 2013 at 16:20

kajacx · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-23 14:02:01Z

1

int myCounter = 255;

//increment
myCounter = (myCounter+1) % 256;

//or even faster hack
myCounter = (myCounter+1) & 0xFF;

also note that if you for any reason need to increment very often and very fast, and then occasionaly read, you can increment without moduling / masking, and modulo / mask the counter at the time you read its value

answered Nov 23, 2013 at 14:02

kajacx

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2 Comments

Karl Adler Over a year ago

is there a possibility to do that using var type byte without casting?

kajacx Over a year ago

Well, in that case, i really dont know about anything alse than use C/C++ instead

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