I have the following conditional statement and would appreciate some insight on the purpose of using “not” (!) on a method in the conditional in such a manner:

char[] buf = new char[10];
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(r);

        if (buf[0] != '<') {
            in.reset();              
            if (!this.handleContent(in)) {
                 return;
             }
        }

Revising or simplifying it to the following appears to achieve the same result:

if (buf[0] != '<') {
            in.reset();
            handleContent(in);  
        }

Thanks!!!