what is the ^ operator in Dart language? - dart

Question

I have noticed the operator ^ in dart which never seen before.
Its being use in calculating the hashcode see below for details.
Here is a code snippet, check the section hashcode where i saw:
import './color.dart';
import './colors.dart';
class CoreState {
final int counter;
final Color backgroundColor;
const CoreState({
this.counter = 0,
this.backgroundColor = Colors.white,
});
CoreState copyWith({
int? counter,
Color? backgroundColor,
}) =>
CoreState(
counter: counter ?? this.counter,
backgroundColor: backgroundColor ?? this.backgroundColor,
);
#override
bool operator ==(Object other) =>
identical(this, other) ||
other is CoreState &&
runtimeType == other.runtimeType &&
counter == other.counter &&
backgroundColor == other.backgroundColor;
#override
int get hashCode => counter.hashCode ^ backgroundColor.hashCode;
#override
String toString() {
return "counter: $counter\n"
"color:$backgroundColor";
}
}

Answer 1

The Dart Language Tour explains that ^ is bitwise XOR. This operator is typically used for computing hash codes. For an explanation why see Why is XOR often used in Java hascode...

Answer 2

The ^ operator in Dart stand for XOR.
For more details, check this

Answer 3

In Dart, the ^ operator is a user-definable operator.
The traditional use of it is exclusive-or (XOR) of integers and Booleans.
var x = 170;
x = x ^ 85;
print(x); // 255;
x ^= 85; // Same meaning as `x = x ^ 85;`.
print(x); // 170
and
var oddity = false;
for (var number in someNumbers) {
oddity ^= element.isOdd;
}
// True if an odd number of numbers are odd.
You can implement the ^ operator on your own classes too. For example the BigInt and Int32x4 classes do, with similar XOR-based meaning.
You could also use it for different things, say matrix exponentiation:
class Matrix {
// ...
Matrix operator ^(int power) {
RangeError.checkNotNegative(power, "power");
if (this.height != this.width) {
throw UnsupportedError("Can only do exponents of square matrices");
}
var result = Matrix.identity(this.height);
while (power > 0) { // Can be made more efficient!
result *= this;
power -= 1;
}
return result;
}
}
...
var matrix = otherMatrix ^ 2;
The precedence of the operator is always the same (just between & and |).