Operators

Course Leader:
Jishmi Jos Choondal

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 Objectives
• At the end of this lecture, student will be able to
– Explain operators in C
– Use different types of operators

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 Contents
• Operators
• Types of operators
• Operator precedence and associativity

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 Operators and Operands
• Expressions consist of variables, operators and operands
a=b+5
• Operator: Symbol representing the operation
= and +
• Operand: The data items (variables and constant) on which the
operation is performed
a, b and 5
– In case of + operator, operands are b and 5
– In case of = operator, operands are a and the value of expression
b+5

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 Operators – Types
• Operators are classified based on number of operands as
– Unary operators
– Binary operators
– Ternary operators

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 Assignment Operator
• Assignment Operator =
a = 1;
1 is assigned to the variable a

• Do not confuse with equality Operator ==

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 Arithmetic Operators
+ (addition)
a+5
- (subtraction)
10 - b
* (multiplication)
a*c
/ (division) – Integer division
a / 5 Example: 10/5 = 2 and 35/2 = 17
% (modulo) - Remainder
a%2 Example: 35%2 = 1

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 Compound Assignment Operators
• Any statement of the form
variable = variable operator expression;
• Can be written as
variable operator = expression;

+= ,-=, *=, /=, %=

a = a + 1;
can be written as
a += 1;
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 Increment and Decrement Operators
• Unary operators for increment and decrement
++
a++; /*post increment - Increment value of a after this
expression is evaluated*/
++a; /* pre increment - Increment value of a first and then
evaluate the expression */
--
a--; /* post decrement - Decrement value of a after this
expression is evaluated*/
--a; /* pre decrement - Decrement value of a first and then
evaluate the expression */
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 Increment and Decrement Operators
• Let a=5 and b=10
a++; //a becomes 6
b--; //b becomes 9
• Example
int a,b,x=10,y=10;
a = x++; b = ++y;
printf("Value of a : %d",a);
printf("Value of b : %d",b);
• Applicable only to variables
– n++ //legal
– (i+j)++ //illegal
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 Operators for Comparison
• Relational Operators
< Less than
> Greater than
!= Not equal to
== Is it equal to? (Do not confuse with assignment operator =)
<= Less than or equal to
>= Greater than or equal to
• Return
– 0 if false
– any other number if true (generally 1 is returned on true)

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 Logical Operators
• Used to take decisions
&& logical AND
if ((a<b) && (a<c)) {}
|| logical OR
if ((a<b) || (a<c)) {}
! logical NOT (unary operator)
if(! ((a<b) && (a<c))) {}

• Return values
– 0 if false
– 1 if true (generally)
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 Question
• How can we get the bits in memory?

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 Bitwise Operators
•All data items are stored in computer’s memory as a
sequence of bits(0s and 1s)
& Bitwise AND The bits in the result are set to 1 if the
corresponding bits in the two operands are both 1 E.g., a&b;
| Bitwise OR The bits in the result are set to 1 if at least one of
the corresponding bits in the two operands is 1 E.g., a|b;

– Suppose a and b are 8-bit Integers

a has value 11010011
b has value 10101100
a&b ?
a|b ?
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 Bitwise Operators contd.
! Complement All 0 bits are set to 1 and all 1 bits are set to 0
E.g., c = !a;
^ Bitwise XOR The bits in the result are set to 1 if exactly one of the
corresponding bits in the two operands is 1
E.g., c = a^b;
<< Left shift Shifts the bits of the first operand left by the number
of bits specified by the second operand; fill from the right with 0 bits
E.g., a<<2;
>> Right Shift Shifts the bits of the first operand right by the number
of bits specified by the second operand; the method of filling from
the left is machine dependent
E.g., a>>2;
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 Conditional Operators
• Ternary operator ?:

• It has the general form

exp1 ? exp2 : exp3
exp1 is evaluated. If it is true, then exp2 is evaluated and becomes
the value of the expression. If exp1 is false, then exp3 is evaluated,
and that is the value

• It takes 3 operands
• Conditional expression
– Conditional operators with the operands
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 Conditional Operators - Example
main(){
int num;
printf("Enter the Number : ");
scanf("%d",&num);
(num%2==0)?printf("Even"):printf("Odd");
}

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 sizeof() Operator
• sizeof() operators returns the size (number of bytes) of
the operand occupies
• Must precede its operand
• Operand may be a constant, a variable or a data type
• Syntax
sizeof(operand);
• Example
x=sizeof(int);
y=sizeof(x);

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 Operators on Floating Point Data Type
• Operators that can be used on float and double data
types
– All Arithmetic operators except %(modulo) operator
– All Comparison operators
– Compound Assignment operators
– sizeof() operator

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 Operator Precedence and Associativity
• Consider
a = 1+2*3/4;
• What is the value of a?

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 Operator Precedence and Associativity
• To avoid confusion while reading, always use brackets
• The computer always gives one answer only as it
understands expressions based on precedence and
associativity

• Precedence
– Which operator to evaluate first
• Associativity
– Which operand to evaluate first

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 Operator Precedence and Associativity

C Operator Precedence Table (DiFranco 2011)

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 Example
• Consider • Refer to the operator
a = 1+2*(3/4); precedence chart when
writing expressions
Treated equal to a = 1+(2*(3/4) ); containing many
3/4 operators
2*0 • If you are uncertain
1+0 about the order of
1 evaluation in a complex
expression, use
a=1 parenthesis to group
expressions
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 Summary
• Expressions consist of
– operators, the symbols that represent an operation
– operands, the data items on which the operation is applied
• There are many types of operators
– Arithmetic
– Comparison
– Logical
– Bitwise
– Conditional, etc.,
• Expressions are evaluated based on precedence and
associativity of operators
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 References
DiFranco, D. (2011) C Operator Precedence Table, available at
http://www.difranco.net/compsci/C_Operator_Precedence_Table.h
tm (accessed 28 July 2014).

Further Reading
Kernighan, B. W. and Richie, D. (1992) The C Programming Language.
2nd ed., New Delhi:PHI.

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