How does AND and OR statements work inside an IF condition

Question

I have the following code:

if(!partialHits.get(req_nr).containsKey(z) || partialHits.get(req_nr).get(z) < tmpmap.get(z)){  
    partialHits.get(z).put(z, tmpmap.get(z));  
}

partialHits is a HashMap. 

Will JAVA check the second statement if first statement is True ? 

For the first statement to be true, the HashMap should not contain the given key therefore if the second statement is checked, we get NullPointerException.
Other way round, consider this condition in JAVA

if(a && b)  
if(a || b)

How does this work ?

Answer 1

No, second statement won't be evaluated. This proves to be very useful. For eg, if you need to test whether a String is not null or empty, you can write:

if (str != null && !str.isEmpty()) {
  doSomethingWith(str.charAt(0));
}

or, the other way around

if (str == null || str.isEmpty()) {
  complainAboutUnusableString();
} else {
  doSomethingWith(str.charAt(0));
}

If we didn't have 'short-circuits' in Java, we'd receive a lot of NullPointerExceptions in the above lines of code.

Answer 2

Short circuit here means that the second condition won't be evaluated.

If ( A && B ) will result in short circuit if A is False.

If ( A && B ) will not result in short Circuit if A is True.

If ( A || B ) will result in short circuit if A is True.

If ( A || B ) will not result in short circuit if A is False.