Increment operator

C has two special unary operators called increment(++) and decrement (--) operators. These operators increment and decrement value of a variable by 1. It is used to increment the value of variable by 1. These are two types:

  1. Pre increment
  2. Post increment

Pre increment

Increment operator is palced before the operand in per increment and the vlaue is first incremented and then operation is performed on it.

Example: a = 10;
b = ++a;
Output 'a' value is 11.
'b' value is 11.

Here ++a means it increments the value at first attempt only not postponed to another attempt, that's why 'a' value is incremented by 1 (10 + 1 = 11). It is called pre increment.


Pre increment not only increments 1 but also increments any number. a+2. It increments 2 values at a time.

Post increment

Increment operator is palced after the operand in post increment and the value is incremented after the operation is performed.

Example
a = 10;
b = a++;
Output
'a' value is 11.
'b' value is 10

Decrement Operator

It is used to decrement the value of a variable by 1. These are two types:

  1. Pre Decrement
  2. Posr Decrement

Pre Decrement

Pre Decrement operator is palced before the operand in pre Decrement and the value is first decremented and then opewration is performed on it.

Example
a = 10;
b = --a;
Output
'a' value is 9
'b' value is 9

Post Decrement

Post Decrement operator is placed after the operand in post decrement and the value is decremented after the operation is performed.

Example
a = 10;
b = a--;
Output
'a' value 9
'b' value 10

Assignment Operator

Using assignment operators, we can assign value to the variables. Equality sign (=) is used as an assignment operator in C.

Example
x = a + b;

Basically, the value of right side operand will be assigned to the left side operand.

leftoperand = rightoperand

In c language assignment operators are classified into two types:

  1. Simple assignment
  2. Compound assignment / Short hand assignment
Simple assignment

simple assignment is nothing but assignning a value to variable

Compound assignment / Short hand assignment
Operator Meaning Example (a = 10, b = 5)
+= L = L + R
Add left and right operand and assign the result in left		 a += b; same as a = a+b; after execution 'a' will hold 15
-= L = L - R
Subtract right operand from left operand and assignning result in left.		 a -= b; same as a = a-b; after exeution 'a' will hold 5.
*= L = L * R
Multiply both right and left operand and store result in left.		 a *= b; same as a = a*b; after execution 'a' will hold 50
/= L = L / R
Divides left operand by right operand and store result in left.		 a /= b; same as a = a/b after execution 'a' will hold 2
%= L = L % R
After left and right operand division, the remainder will be stored in left.		 a %= b; same as a = a%b after execution 'a' will hold 0

Here '/' operator stores the quotient value and modulus(%) operator stores the remainder value.