Operators

Outline
1. Operators
2. Arithmetic Operators
3. Operator Precedence and Associativity
4. Expressions
5. Different Forms of Assignment Operators
6. Increment and Decrement Operators
7. Swapping Values between Two Variables
8. Some uses of Integer Division and Modulus
Operators
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1. Operators
• Operator – a symbol or keyword that represents an operation to
be applied to some data, yielding a value.
E.g. varA = -varB + 40 * 20;

• Operand – input data to an operator

• We use operators all the time in real life. You should all be
familiar with Binary operators and Unary operators in basic
arithmetic. You can recognize them intuitively in C:
– Binary operator – an operator that accepts 2 operands
E.g. 40 * 20 x - 7.3 a = 5
– Unary operator – an operator that accepts 1 operand
E.g. -10 +10

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1. Operators
• Basic arithmetic operators in C:
– e.g., + - * / %
• There are other types of operators you will learn later:
– Relational Operators, e.g., < <= == >= > !=
– Logical Operators, e.g., && || !
– Assignment Operators, e.g., = += *= &=
– Increment and Decrement Operators, e.g., ++ --
– Bitwise Operators, e.g., & | ~ ^
– Comma Operator, Parentheses, Conditional Operator,
Member Operator, Pointer Operators, …
– Most Binary, some Unary and even Ternary
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2. Arithmetic Operators
Operator Description Example
+ Addition 8 + 5  13
- Subtraction (a binary operator) 8 - 5  3
Don’t type
* Multiplication 8 * 5  40
⨉
or write

/ Integer Division 8 / 5  1 (Quotient)

/ Floating-point Division 8.0 / 5.0  1.6
% Modulus (yields the
remainder of an integer 8 % 5  3
division) (Remainder of 8 / 5)
Applicable only to integers
- Minus (an unary operator) - (5+7)  -12
+ Plus (an unary operator for + (-7)  -7
integer promotion)

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2. Arithmetic Operators
• When used as an unary operator, '-' represents the
minus operator, which turns a positive value into its
negative counterpart and vice versa, i.e., additive
inverse.
e.g.: foo = 5;
bar = -foo; // Assign -5 to
bar
Exercise: evaluate the following expressions
• 20 % 3
• 2 % 9
• 30 / 20 / 2
• 10 * 2 + 4 * 3

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3. Operator Precedence & Associativity
• How should we evaluate the following expression? i.e.,
in what order should the operators be applied?

- 2 - 25 / 10 + 33 * 2

• Among different operators, operator precedence tells us

which operator(s) should be applied first.
• Most of us will know immediately that * and / are
applied before + and -
• Your C program will also respect the common sense
arithmetic precedence
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3. Operator Precedence & Associativity
• Using basic arithmetic knowledge, what is the result of the
following expression?

- 2 - 25 / 10 + 33 % 10 * 2

• Hint: If operators have the same precedence, which one do we

evaluate first, as a human?
e.g.: 3 * 5 * 2

• This is called operator associativity; among operators with the

same precedence, operator associativity tells us whether the left-
most or the right-most operator should be applied first.

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3. Operator Precedence & Associativity
• Given the limited amount of operators we have learned in C so far, this
table summarizes their operator precedence and operator associativity
Operators Associativity Precedence
+ (unary plus) - (unary minus) Right to Left Highest
* / % Left to right
+ (addition) - (subtraction) Left to right
= (assignment) Right to Left Lowest

• Operators at same level have same precedence.

e.g.: - a * b - c is equivalent to ((- a) * b) – c

• -2 - 25 / 10 + 33 % 10 * 2 = ?

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3.1. Parentheses
• Use parentheses '(' and ')' to explicitly specify the
evaluation order of sub-expressions
(a + b) * (c + d)

• Multiple levels of parentheses (never use [ ] or { }!)

((a + b) * (a + b) - c) * (d - e)

• Tips: Use parentheses for clarity or when you are not

sure about the precedence of the operators. We shall
learn more about precedence when we learn other
operators.

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4. Expressions
• An expression is a combination of operators, constants,
variables, and function calls
– e.g.: 30
24 + a
d = b * b - 4 * a * c
sqrt(4.0) + a * sqrt(9.0)

• An expression
– Can always be evaluated to a value (of some data type)
– Can be part of another expression

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5. Assignment Operators
variable = expression
• Low precedence, right-to-left associativity

• expression is evaluated first and the evaluated value is

assigned to variable.

• Important: "variable = expression" is also an

expression which evaluates to the value of variable.
e.g.:
var1 = var2 = 3 + 2
is evaluated as
var1 = (var2 = (3 + 2))

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1 int a = 0, b = 2, c;
Equivalent to
2 double pi = 3.1416;
int a, b, c;
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double pi;
Assignment operator can be used to initialize a = 0;
variables in variable declaration. b = 2;
pi = 3.1416;

What's the value of variable c?

1 int a = 0;
2 a = a + 2;
3 printf("%d", a); // What's the
4 output?

+ has higher precedence than =. Thus

a = a + 2
is evaluated as
a = (a + 2)  a = (0 + 2)  a = 2

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1 int a = 1, b = 2;
2 b = b * a;
3 a = 0;
4 printf("%d", b); // What's the output?

Statements are executed sequentially one after another.

(Line 1) a is set to 1 and b is set to 2.
(Line 2) b becomes 2.
(Line 3) a becomes 0 but changing a does not affect other variables.

1 int b, c, d;
2 d = c = b = 0; // Assign 0 to variables b, c, and
3 d
4 // d = c = b = 0 is evaluated as d = (c = (b = 0))

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5.1. Assignment Operators – Short Form
• i = i + 2; can be written as i += 2;

• The semantics of
variable = variable op (expression);
is equivalent to
variable op= expression;

• Some short form assignment operators:

+= -= *= /= %=

• Note that i *= j + 2; is equivalent to i = i * (j + 2);

and not to i = i * j + 2;
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6. Increment / Decrement Operator
• To increase the value of a variable, i, by one, we can
write the following statement:
i = i + 1;

• We can also write a statement with an increment

operator to achieve the same result:
i++; or ++i;
(see Appendix for their difference)

• Similarly, we can write i-- or --i to decrease the value

of i by one.
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7. Swapping the value between two variables
int a = 0, b = 1, tmp;
// How to exchange/swap the value of a and b?

a = b; // Method A ?
b = a;

tmp = a; // Method B ?
a = b;
b = tmp;

tmp = a; // Method C ?
b = tmp;
a = b;
Answer: Method B
Dry run the code segments and you’ll know
why! 17
Summary
• Arithmetic operators (+, -, *, /, %)

• Operator precedence and associativity

• Different forms of assignment operators (=, +=, -=, *=, …)

• Increment (++) and decrement (--) operators

• Swapping the value between two variables

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Appendix (Optional Topics)
• Difference between ++i (prefix) and i++ (postfix)
Increment operators

• Practical uses of Integer Division (/) and

Modulus (%) operators

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More on Increment Operator
• The increment operator (++) can be placed in either prefix
or postfix position, with different results.

• ++i (prefix increment to i)

– Increase the value of i by 1, FIRST before everything in this line.
– The value of the expression "++i" is the NEW value of i.

• i++ (postfix increment to i)

– The value of the expression "i++" is the OLD value of i.
– Increase the value of i by 1, LAST after everything in this line.

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More on Increment Operator
Statement that involves ++ operator Equivalent statements
k = ++i * 2; i = i + 1; // side effect
// prefix increment of first
i k = i * 2; // NEW value of
i*2
k = i++ * 2; k = i * 2; // OLD value of
// postfix increment i*2
of i i = i + 1; // side effect
last
printf("%d\n", ++k); k = k + 1; // side effect
// prefix increment of first
k printf("%d\n", k); // NEW k
printf("%d\n", k++); printf("%d\n", k); // OLD k
// postfix increment k = k + 1; // side effect
of k last
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More on Increment Operator
• Example
1 int i, k;
2 i = 0;
1
3 k = ++i; 1
4 printf("%d\n", i); 2
5 printf("%d\n", k);
6 printf("%d\n", ++k);

1 int i, k;
2 i = 0;
3 k = i++; 1
0
4 printf("%d\n", i);
0
5 printf("%d\n", k);
6 printf("%d\n", k++);

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Some uses of Integer Division and Modulus Operators

Suppose n is an integer
• (n % 10) yields the right most digit of n
e.g.: 1234 % 10  4

• (n / 100 % 10) yields the 3rd digit from the right of n

e.g.: 1234 / 100 % 10  12 % 10  2

• Determining if n is odd or even

if n is odd, (n % 2) shall be 1 or -1 (i.e., not zero)
if n is even, (n % 2) shall be 0
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Reading Assignment
• C: How to Program, 8th ed, Deitel and Deitel
• Chapter 2 Introduction to C Programming
– Section 2.5
• Chapter 3 Structured Program Development in C
– Sections 3.11, 3.12

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