Programmer's Guide to Java™ Certification, A: A Comprehensive Primer, Second Edition

3.14. Shift Operators: <<, >>, >>>

The binary shift operators form a new value by shifting bits either left or right a specified number of times in a given integral value. The number of shifts (also called the shift distance) is given by the right-hand operand, and the value that is to be shifted is given by the left-hand operand. Note that unary numeric promotion is applied to each operand individually. The value returned has the promoted type of the left-hand operand. Also, the value of the left-hand operand is not affected by applying the shift operator.

The shift distance is calculated by AND-ing the value of the right-hand operand with a mask value of 0x1f (31) if the left-hand has the promoted type int, or using a mask value of 0x3f (63) ...