Logical right shift operator in java

>>> is the bitwise right-shift operator, with 0 sign extension - in other words, all bits "incoming" from the left are filled with 0s.

-1 is represented by 32 bits which are all 1. When you shift that right by 1 bit with 0 sign extension, you end up with a value which has the 31 bottom bits still 1, but 0 for the top bit (the sign bit), so you end up with Integer.MAX_VALUE - which is 2147483647, not 2147483648 as your post states.

Or in JLS terms, from section 15.19:

The value of n >>> s is n right-shifted s bit positions with zero-extension, where:

If n is positive, then the result is the same as that of n >> s.

If n is negative and the type of the left-hand operand is int, then the result is equal to that of the expression (n >> s) + (2 << ~s).

If n is negative and the type of the left-hand operand is long, then the result is equal to that of the expression (n >> s) + (2L << ~s).

This definition ends up being a bit of a pain to work with - it's easier to just work with the "0 sign extension right-shift" explanation, IMO.