* : Java Glossary

There are other surprises. You might then expect byte * byte to be a byte, char * char to be a char, short * short to be a short, but they are not. All of them result in an int.

Further, byte and short are sign extended to int before the multiply.

long * long gives a long, again truncating without overflow notification. long * int also gives a long.

Floating point, (float and double) works quite differently. float * float gives a float and double * double gives a double. double * float also gives a double. Floating point warns you when the multiply fails by giving NaN (Not A Number) results.

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