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7 More Operators

This chapter introduces some advanced arithmetic operators in C, including operators to increment and decrement variables. It notes that incrementing variables by 1 is extremely common in programming loops and arrays but that using i = i + 1 can be cumbersome. C provides two simpler ways to increment variables: assignment operators and increment/decrement operators.

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27 views

7 More Operators

This chapter introduces some advanced arithmetic operators in C, including operators to increment and decrement variables. It notes that incrementing variables by 1 is extremely common in programming loops and arrays but that using i = i + 1 can be cumbersome. C provides two simpler ways to increment variables: assignment operators and increment/decrement operators.

Uploaded by

gdskumar
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Chapter 7: More Operators

In this chapter we'll meet some (though still not all) of C's more advanced arithmetic
operators. The ones we'll meet here have to do with making common patterns of
operations easier.

It's extremely common in programming to have to increment a variable by 1, that is, to


add 1 to it. (For example, if you're processing each element of an array, you'll typically
write a loop with an index or pointer variable stepping through the elements of the array,
and you'll increment the variable each time through the loop.) The classic way to
increment a variable is with an assignment like

i = i + 1
Such an assignment is perfectly common and acceptable, but it has a few slight problems:

1. As we've mentioned, it looks a little odd, especially from an algebraic perspective.


2. If the object being incremented is not a simple variable, the idiom can become
cumbersome to type, and correspondingly more error-prone. For example, the
expression
3. a[i+j+2*k] = a[i+j+2*k] + 1

is a bit of a mess, and you may have to look closely to see that the similar-looking
expression

a[i+j+2*k] = a[i+j+2+k] + 1

probably has a mistake in it.

4. Since incrementing things is so common, it might be nice to have an easier way of


doing it.

In fact, C provides not one but two other, simpler ways of incrementing variables and
performing other similar operations.
7.1 Assignment Operators
7.2 Increment and Decrement Operators
7.3 Order of Evaluation

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