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# Increment/decrement operators

From cppreference.com
< c‎ | language

Increment/decrement operators are unary operators that increment/decrement the value of a variable by 1.

They can be applied either postfix:

a++
a--

or prefix:

++a
--a

The returned result of the postfix version of the operator is the original operand, with a side-effect being that the operand is incremented/decremented after this result is returned.

The returned result of the prefix version of the operator is the incremented/decremented operand.

Therefore, the following lines all result in a being incremented by 1:

a = a + 1;
a += 1;
a++;
++a;

But, the value of b is not equal to the value of c after the execution of the following lines:

int a = 1;
int b = a++; // after execution: a equals 2, b equals 1
a = 1;
int c = ++a; // after execution: a equals 2, c equals 2

### [edit] Example

Run this code

    #include <stdlib.h>
    #include <stdio.h>

    int main(void) {

      int a = 1;
      int b = 1;

      // Behaviour of the postfix increment and decrement operators.
      printf("\n");
      printf("original values: a == %d, b == %d\n", a, b);
      printf("result of postfix operators: a++ == %d, b-- == %d\n", a++, b--);
      printf("after postfix operators applied: a == %d, b == %d\n", a, b);

      // Reset a and b.
      a = 1;
      b = 1;

      // Behaviour of the prefix increment and decrement operators.
      printf("\n");
      printf("original values: a == %d, b == %d\n", a, b);
      printf("result of prefix operators: ++a == %d, --b == %d\n", ++a, --b);
      printf("after prefix operators applied: a == %d, b == %d\n", a, b);

      printf("\n");

      return EXIT_SUCCESS;
    }

Output:

    original values: a == 1, b == 1
    result of postfix operators: a++ == 1, b-- == 1
    after postfix operators applied: a == 2, b == 0

    original values: a == 1, b == 1
    result of prefix operators: ++a == 2, --b == 0
    after prefix operators applied: a == 2, b == 0

### [edit] Notes

Because of the side-effects involved, built-in increment and decrement operators must be used with care to avoid undefined behavior due to violations of sequencing rules.

### [edit] See Also

Operator precedence

Common operators
assignment | increment decrement | arithmetic | logical | comparison | member access | other
a = b a += b a -= b a *= b a /= b a %= b a &= b a |= b a ^= b a <<= b a >>= b | ++a --a a++ a-- | +a -a a + b a - b a * b a / b a % b ~a a & b a | b a ^ b a << b a >> b | !a a && b a || b | a == b a != b a < b a > b a <= b a >= b | a[b] *a &a a->b a.b | a(...) a, b (type) a ? : sizeof _Alignof (since C11)

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