C operators
Operators Introduction
An operator is a symbol which helps the user to command the computer to do a certain mathematical or logical manipulations. Operators are used in C language program to operate on data and variables. C has a rich set of operators which can be classified as
2. Arithmetic operators
3. Assignment Operators
4. Special Operators
5. Increments and Decrement Operators
6. Conditional Operators
7. Bitwise Operators
8. Logical Operators
1. Arithmetic Operators
All the basic arithmetic operations can be carried out in C. All the operators have almost the same meaning as in other languages. Both unary and binary operations are available in C language. Unary operations operate on a singe operand, therefore the number 5 when operated by unary – will have the value –5.
Arithmetic Operators
Operator Meaning
+ Addition or Unary Plus
– Subtraction or Unary Minus
* Multiplication
/ Division
% Modulus Operator
Examples of arithmetic operators are
x + y
x - y
-x + y
a * b + c
-a * b
etc.,
here a, b, c, x, y are known as operands. The modulus operator is a special operator in C language which evaluates the remainder of the operands after division.
Operator Meaning
<> is greater than
>= is greater than or equal to
== is equal to
!= is not equal to
h
It is required to compare the marks of 2 students, salary of 2 persons, we can compare them using relational operators.
A simple relational expression contains only one relational operator and takes the following form.
exp1 relational operator exp2
Where exp1 and exp2 are expressions, which may be simple constants, variables or combination of them. Given below is a list of examples of relational expressions and evaluated values.
6.5 <= 25 TRUE -65 > 0 FALSE
10 <> b && x = = 10
The expression to the left is a > b and that on the right is x == 10 the whole expression is true only if both expressions are true i.e., if a is greater than b and x is equal to 10.
3. Assignment Operators
The Assignment Operator evaluates an expression on the right of the expression and substitutes it to the value or variable on the left of the expression.
Example
x = a + b
Here the value of a + b is evaluated and substituted to the variable x.
In addition, C has a set of shorthand assignment operators of the form.
var oper = exp;
Here var is a variable, exp is an expression and oper is a C binary arithmetic operator. The operator oper = is known as shorthand assignment operator
Example
x + = 1 is same as x = x + 1
Shorthand assignment operators
| Statement with simple
| Statement with
|
| a = a + 1 | a += 1 |
| a = a – 1 | a -= 1 |
| a = a * (n+1) | a *= (n+1) |
| a = a / (n+1) | a /= (n+1) |
| a = a % b | a %= b |
8. Logical Operators
C has the following logical operators, they compare or evaluate logical and relational expressions.
| Operator | Meaning |
| && | Logical AND |
| || | Logical OR |
| ! | Logical NOT |
Logical AND (&&)
This operator is used to evaluate 2 conditions or expressions with relational operators simultaneously. If both the expressions to the left and to the right of the logical operator is true then the whole compound expression is true.
Example
a > b && x = = 10
The expression to the left is a > b and that on the right is x == 10 the whole expression is true only if both expressions are true i.e., if a is greater than b and x is equal to 10.
Logical OR (||)
The logical OR is used to combine 2 expressions or the condition evaluates to true if any one of the 2 expressions is true.
Example
a <>
The expression evaluates to true if any one of them is true or if both of them are true. It evaluates to true if a is less than either m or n and when a is less than both m and n.
Logical NOT (!)
The logical not operator takes single expression and evaluates to true if the expression is false and evaluates to false if the expression is true. In other words it just reverses the value of the expression.
For example
! (x >= y) the NOT expression evaluates to true only if the value of x is neither greater than or equal to y
4. Increment and Decrement Operators
The increment and decrement operators are one of the unary operators which are very useful in C language. They are extensively used in for and while loops. The syntax of the operators is given below
1. ++ variable name
2. variable name++
3. – –variable name
4. variable name– –
The increment operator ++ adds the value 1 to the current value of operand and the decrement operator – – subtracts the value 1 from the current value of operand. ++variable name and variable name++ mean the same thing when they form statements independently, they behave differently when they are used in expression on the right hand side of an assignment statement.
Consider the following
m = 5;
y = ++m; (prefix)
In this case the value of y and m would be 6
Suppose if we rewrite the above statement as
m = 5;
y = m++; (post fix)
Then the value of y will be 5 and that of m will be 6. A prefix operator first adds 1 to the operand and then the result is assigned to the variable on the left. On the other hand, a postfix operator first assigns the value to the variable on the left and then increments the operand.
5. Conditional or Ternary Operator
The conditional operator consists of 2 symbols the question mark (?) and the colon (:)
The syntax for a ternary operator is as follows
exp1 ? exp2 : exp3
The ternary operator works as follows
exp1 is evaluated first. If the expression is true then exp2 is evaluated & its value becomes the value of the expression. If exp1 is false, exp3 is evaluated and its value becomes the value of the expression. Note that only one of the expression is evaluated.
For example
a = 10;
b = 15;
x = (a > b) ? a : b
Here x will be assigned to the value of b. The condition follows that the expression is false therefore b is assigned to x.
6. Bitwise Operators
C has a distinction of supporting special operators known as bitwise operators for manipulation data at bit level. A bitwise operator operates on each bit of data. Those operators are used for testing, complementing or shifting bits to the right on left. Bitwise operators may not be applied to a float or double.
Operator Meaning
& Bitwise AND
| Bitwise OR
^ Bitwise Exclusive
<<>> Shift right
7. Special Operators
C supports some special operators of interest such as comma operator, size of operator, pointer operators (& and *) and member selection operators (. and ->). The size of and the comma operators are discussed here.
The Comma Operator(,)
The comma operator can be used to link related expressions together. A comma-linked list of expressions are evaluated left to right and value of right most expression is the value of the combined expression.
For example the statement
value = (x = 10, y = 5, x + y);
First assigns 10 to x and 5 to y and finally assigns 15 to value. Since comma has the lowest precedence in operators the parenthesis is necessary.
Some examples of comma operator are
In for loops:
for (n=1, m=10, n <=m; n++,m++) In while loops While (c=getchar(), c != ‘10’) Exchanging values t = x, x = y, y = t; The size of Operator The operator size of gives the size of the data type or variable in terms of bytes occupied in the memory. The operand may be a variable, a constant or a data type qualifier. Example m = sizeof (sum); n = sizeof (long int); k = sizeof (235L); The size of operator is normally used to determine the lengths of arrays and structures when their sizes are not known to the programmer. It is also used to allocate memory space dynamically to variables during the execution of the program.
7. Bitwise Operators
C has a distinction of supporting special operators known as bitwise operators for manipulation data at bit level. A bitwise operator operates on each bit of data. Those operators are used for testing, complementing or shifting bits to the right on left. Bitwise operators may not be applied to a float or double.
| Operator | Meaning |
| & | Bitwise AND |
| | | Bitwise OR |
| ^ | Bitwise Exclusive |
| << | Shift left |
| >> | Shift right |
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