Operators

A table of operator associativity and precedence appears in the next section.

Unary operators

Expressions with unary operators group right to left.

* e

Indirection operator. Returns the object or function pointed to by its operand. If the type of the expression is ``pointer to ...,'' the type of the result is ``....''

& e

Address operator. Returns a pointer to the object or function referred to by the operand. Operand must be an lvalue or function type, and not a bit-field or an object declared register. Where the operand has type ``type,'' the result has type ``pointer to type.''

- e

Negation operator. The operand must have arithmetic type. Result is the negative of its operand. Integral promotion is performed on the operand, and the result has the promoted type. The negative of an unsigned quantity
is computed by subtracting its value from 2[n] where n is the number of bits in the result type.

+ e

Unary plus operator. The operand must have arithmetic type. Result is the value of its operand. Integral promotion is performed on the operand, and the result has the promoted type.

! e

Logical negation operator. The operand must have arithmetic or pointer type. Result is one if the value of its operand is zero, zero if the value of its operand is nonzero. The type of the result is int.

~ e

The ~ operator yields the one's complement (all bits inverted) of its operand, which must have integral type. Integral promotion is performed on the operand, and the result has the promoted type.

++e

The object referred to by the lvalue operand of prefix ++ is incremented. The value is the new value of the operand but is not an lvalue. The expression ++x is equivalent to x += 1. The type of the result is the type of the operand.

--e

The modifiable lvalue operand of prefix -- is decremented analogously to the prefix ++ operator.

e++

When postfix ++ is applied to a modifiable lvalue, the result is the value of the object referred to by the lvalue. After the result is noted, the object is incremented in the same manner as for the prefix ++ operator. The type of the result is the same as the type of the lvalue.

e--

When postfix -- is applied to an lvalue, the result is the value of the object referred to by the lvalue. After the result is noted, the object is decremented in the same manner as for the prefix -- operator. The type of the result is the same as the type of the lvalue.

sizeof e

The sizeof operator yields the size in bytes of its operand. When applied to an object with array type, the result is the total number of bytes in the array. (The size is determined from the declarations of the objects in the expression.) This expression is semantically an unsigned constant (of type size_t, a typedef) and may be used anywhere a constant is required (except in a #if preprocessing directive line). One major use is in communication with routines like storage allocators and I/O systems.

sizeof (type)

The sizeof operator may also be applied to a parenthesized type name. In that case it yields the size in bytes of an object of the indicated type.

Cast operators - explicit conversions

(type) e

Placing a parenthesized type name before an expression converts the value of the expression to that type. Both the operand and type must be pointer type or an arithmetic type.

Multiplicative operators

The multiplicative operators *, /, and % group left to right. The usual arithmetic conversions are performed, and that is the type of the result.

e*e

Multiplication operator. The * operator is commutative.

e/e

Division operator. When positive integers are divided, truncation is toward 0. If either operand is negative, the quotient is negative. Operands must be arithmetic types.

e%e

Remainder operator. Yields the remainder from the division of the first expression by the second. The operands must have integral type.
The sign of the remainder is that of the first operand. It is always true that (a/b)*b + a%b is equal to a (if a/b is representable).

Additive operators

The additive operators + and - group left to right. The usual arithmetic conversions are performed. There are some additional type possibilities for each operator.

e+e

Result is the sum of the operands. A pointer to an object in an array and an integral value may be added. The latter is always converted to an address offset by multiplying it by the size of the object to which the pointer points. The result is a pointer of the same type as the original pointer that points to another object in the same array, appropriately offset from the original object. Thus if P is a pointer to an object in an array, the expression P+1 is a pointer to the next object in the array. No further type combinations are allowed for pointers.

The + operator is commutative.

The valid operand type combinations for the + operator are:

a + a

p + i or i + p

where a is an arithmetic type, i is an integral type, and p is a pointer.

e-e

Result is the difference of the operands. The operand combinations are the same as for the + operator, except that a pointer type may not be subtracted from an integral type.

Also, if two pointers to objects of the same type are subtracted, the result is converted (by division by the size of the object) to an integer that represents the number of objects separating the pointed-to objects. This conversion will in general give unexpected results unless the pointers point to objects in the same array, because pointers, even to objects of the same type, do not necessarily differ by a multiple of the object size. The result type is ptrdiff_t (defined in stddef.h). ptrdiff_t is a typedef for int in this implementation. It should be used ``as is'' to ensure portability. Valid type combinations are

a - a

p - i

p - p

Bitwise shift operators

The bitwise shift operators << and >> take integral operands.

e1 << e2

Shifts e1 left by e2 bit positions. Vacated bits are filled with zeros.

e1 >> e2

Shifts e1 right by e2 bit positions. Vacated bits are filled with zeros on the 3B2. On the Intel386 microprocessor, vacated bits are filled with zeros if the promoted type of e1 is an unsigned type. Otherwise they are filled with copies of the sign bit of the promoted value of e1.

-Xt

The result type is unsigned if either operand is unsigned.

-Xa, -Xc

The result type is the promoted type of the left operand. Integral promotion occurs before the shift operation.

Relational operators

   a relop a
   p relop p

• The relational operators < (less than) > (greater than) <= (less than or equal to) >= (greater than or equal to) yield 1 if the specified relation is true and 0 if it is false.

• The result has type int.

• Both operands:

  • have arithmetic type; or

  • are pointers to qualified or unqualified versions of the same object or incomplete types.

Equality operators

   a eqop a
   p eqop p
   p eqop 0
   0 eqop p

• The == (equal to) and != (not equal to) operators are analogous to the relational operators; however, they have lower precedence.

Bitwise AND operator

   ie1 & ie2

• Bitwise ``and'' of ie1 and ie2.

• Value contains a 1 in each bit position where both ie1 and ie2 contain a 1, and a 0 in every other position.

• Operands must be integral; the usual arithmetic conversions are applied, and that is the type of the result.

Bitwise exclusive OR operator

   ie1 ^ ie2

• Bitwise exclusive ``or'' of ie1 and ie2.

• Value contains a 1 in each position where there is a 1 in either ie1 or ie2, but not both, and a 0 in every other bit position.

• Operands must be integral; the usual arithmetic conversions are applied, and that is the type of the result.

Bitwise OR operator

   ie1 | ie2

• Bitwise inclusive ``or'' of ie1 and ie2.

• Value contains a 1 in each bit position where there is a 1 in either ie1 or ie2, and a 0 in every other bit position.

• Operands must be integral; the usual arithmetic conversions are applied, and that is the type of the result.

Logical AND operator

   e1 && e2

• Logical ``and'' of e1 and e2.

• e1 and e2 must be scalars.

• e1 is evaluated first, and e2 is evaluated only if e1 is nonzero.

• Result is 1 if both e1 and e2 are non-zero, otherwise 0.

• Result type is int.

Logical OR operator

   e1 || e2

• Logical ``or'' of e1 and e2.

• e1 and e2 must be scalars.

• e1 is evaluated first, and e2 is evaluated only if e1 is zero. Result is 0 only if both e1 and e2 are false, otherwise 1.

• Result type is int.

Conditional operator

   e ? e1 : e2

• If e is nonzero, then e1 is evaluated; otherwise e2 is evaluated. The value is e1 or e2.

• The first operand must have scalar type.

• For the second and third operands, one of the following must be true:

  • Both must be arithmetic types. The usual arithmetic conversions are performed to make them a common type and the result has that type.

  • Both must have compatible structure or union type; the result is that type.

  • Both operands have void type; the result has void type.

  • Both operands are pointers to qualified or unqualified versions of compatible types. The result type is the composite type.

  • One operand is a pointer and the other is a null pointer constant. The result type is the pointer type.

  • One operand is a pointer to an object or incomplete type and the other is a pointer to a qualified or unqualified version of void. The result type is a pointer to void.
  For the pointer cases (the last three), the result is a pointer to a type qualified by all the qualifiers of the types pointed to by the operands.

Assignment expressions

• Assignment operators are: = *= /= %= += -= <<= >>= &= |= ^=

• An expression of the form e1 op= e2 is equivalent to e1 = e1 op (e2) except that e1 is evaluated only once.

• The left operand:

  • must be a modifiable lvalue.

  • must have arithmetic type, or, for += and -=, must be a pointer to an object type and the right operand must have integral type.

  • of an = operator, if the operand is a structure or union, must not have any member or submember qualified with const.

• Result type is the type of the (unpromoted) left operand.

Comma operator

   e1 , e2

• e1 is evaluated first, then e2.

• The result has the type and value of e2 and is not an lvalue.

Structure operators

   su.mem

   sup -> mem