Operators in C and C++

This is a list of operators in the C and C++ programming languages. All the operators listed exist in C++; the fourth column "Included in C", states whether an operator is also present in C. Note that C does not support operator overloading.

When not overloaded, for the operators &&, ||, and , (the comma operator), there is a sequence point after the evaluation of the first operand.

C++ also contains the type conversion operators const_cast, static_cast, dynamic_cast, and reinterpret_cast. The formatting of these operators means that their precedence level is unimportant.

Most of the operators available in C and C++ are also available in other languages such as C#, D, Java, Perl, and PHP with the same precedence, associativity, and semantics.

Table

For the purposes of these tables, a, b, and c represent valid values (literals, values from variables, or return value), object names, or lvalues, as appropriate. R, S and T stand for any type(s), and K for a class type or enumerated type.

Arithmetic operators

Operator name		Syntax	Can overload in C++	Included in C	C++ Prototype examples
Operator name		Syntax	Can overload in C++	Included in C	As member of K	Outside class definitions
Basic assignment		`a = b`	Yes	Yes	`R& K::operator =(S b);`	N/A
Addition		`a + b`	Yes	Yes	`R K::operator +(S b);`	`R operator +(K a, S b);`
Subtraction		`a - b`	Yes	Yes	`R K::operator -(S b);`	`R operator -(K a, S b);`
Unary plus (integer promotion)		`+a`	Yes	Yes	`R K::operator +();`	`R operator +(K a);`
Unary minus (additive inverse)		`-a`	Yes	Yes	`R K::operator -();`	`R operator -(K a);`
Multiplication		`a * b`	Yes	Yes	`R K::operator *(S b);`	`R operator *(K a, S b);`
Division		`a / b`	Yes	Yes	`R K::operator /(S b);`	`R operator /(K a, S b);`
Modulo (integer remainder)^{[lower-alpha 1]}		`a % b`	Yes	Yes	`R K::operator %(S b);`	`R operator %(K a, S b);`
Increment	Prefix	`++a`	Yes	Yes	`R& K::operator ++();`	`R& operator ++(K& a);`
	Postfix	`a++`	Yes	Yes	`R K::operator ++(int);`	`R operator ++(K& a, int);`
	Postfix	`a++`	Yes	Yes	Note: C++ uses the unnamed dummy-parameter `int` to differentiate between prefix and postfix increment operators.
Decrement	Prefix	`--a`	Yes	Yes	`R& K::operator --();`	`R& operator --(K& a);`
	Postfix	`a--`	Yes	Yes	`R K::operator --(int);`	`R operator --(K& a, int);`
	Postfix	`a--`	Yes	Yes	Note: C++ uses the unnamed dummy-parameter `int` to differentiate between prefix and postfix decrement operators.

Comparison operators/relational operators

Operator name	Syntax	Can overload in C++	Included in C	Prototype examples
Operator name	Syntax	Can overload in C++	Included in C	As member of K	Outside class definitions
Equal to	`a == b`	Yes	Yes	`bool K::operator ==(S const& b);`	`bool operator ==(K const& a, S const& b);`
Not equal to	`a != b` `a not_eq b`^{[lower-alpha 2]}	Yes	Yes	`bool K::operator !=(S const& b);` `bool K::operator !=(S const& b) const;`	`bool operator !=(K const& a, S const& b);`
Greater than	`a > b`	Yes	Yes	`bool K::operator >(S const& b) const;`	`bool operator >(K const& a, S const& b);`
Less than	`a < b`	Yes	Yes	`bool K::operator <(S const& b)const;`	`bool operator <(K const& a, S const& b);`
Greater than or equal to	`a >= b`	Yes	Yes	`bool K::operator >=(S const& b) const;`	`bool operator >=(K const& a, S const& b);`
Less than or equal to	`a <= b`	Yes	Yes	`bool K::operator <=(S const& b);`	`bool operator <=(K const& a, S const& b);`

Logical operators

Operator name	Syntax	Can overload in C++	Included in C	Prototype examples
Operator name	Syntax	Can overload in C++	Included in C	As member of K	Outside class definitions
Logical negation (NOT)	`!a` `not a`^{[lower-alpha 2]}	Yes	Yes	`bool K::operator !();`	`bool operator !(K a);`
Logical AND	`a && b` `a and b`^{[lower-alpha 2]}	Yes	Yes	`bool K::operator &&(S b);`	`bool operator &&(K a, S b);`
Logical OR	`a \|\| b` `a or b`^{[lower-alpha 2]}	Yes	Yes	`bool K::operator \|\|(S b);`	`bool operator \|\|(K a, S b);`

Bitwise operators

Operator name	Syntax	Can overload in C++	Included in C	Prototype examples
Operator name	Syntax	Can overload in C++	Included in C	As member of K	Outside class definitions
Bitwise NOT	`~a` `compl a`^{[lower-alpha 2]}	Yes	Yes	`R K::operator ~();`	`R operator ~(K a);`
Bitwise AND	`a & b` `a bitand b`^{[lower-alpha 2]}	Yes	Yes	`R K::operator &(S b);`	`R operator &(K a, S b);`
Bitwise OR	`a \| b` `a bitor b`^{[lower-alpha 2]}	Yes	Yes	`R K::operator \|(S b);`	`R operator \|(K a, S b);`
Bitwise XOR	`a ^ b` `a xor b`^{[lower-alpha 2]}	Yes	Yes	`R K::operator ^(S b);`	`R operator ^(K a, S b);`
Bitwise left shift^{[lower-alpha 3]}	`a << b`	Yes	Yes	`R K::operator <<(S b);`	`R operator <<(K a, S b);`
Bitwise right shift^{[lower-alpha 3]}^{[lower-alpha 4]}	`a >> b`	Yes	Yes	`R K::operator >>(S b);`	`R operator >>(K a, S b);`

Compound assignment operators

Operator name	Syntax	Meaning	Can overload in C++	Included in C	Prototype examples
Operator name	Syntax	Meaning	Can overload in C++	Included in C	As member of K	Outside class definitions
Addition assignment	`a += b`	`a = a + b`	Yes	Yes	`R& K::operator +=(S b);`	`R& operator +=(K& a, S b);`
Subtraction assignment	`a -= b`	`a = a - b`	Yes	Yes	`R& K::operator -=(S b);`	`R& operator -=(K& a, S b);`
Multiplication assignment	`a *= b`	`a = a * b`	Yes	Yes	`R& K::operator *=(S b);`	`R& operator *=(K& a, S b);`
Division assignment	`a /= b`	`a = a / b`	Yes	Yes	`R& K::operator /=(S b);`	`R& operator /=(K& a, S b);`
Modulo assignment	`a %= b`	`a = a % b`	Yes	Yes	`R& K::operator %=(S b);`	`R& operator %=(K& a, S b);`
Bitwise AND assignment	`a &= b` `a and_eq b`^{[lower-alpha 2]}	`a = a & b`	Yes	Yes	`R& K::operator &=(S b);`	`R& operator &=(K& a, S b);`
Bitwise OR assignment	`a \|= b` `a or_eq b`^{[lower-alpha 2]}	`a = a \| b`	Yes	Yes	`R& K::operator \|=(S b);`	`R& operator \|=(K& a, S b);`
Bitwise XOR assignment	`a ^= b` `a xor_eq b`^{[lower-alpha 2]}	`a = a ^ b`	Yes	Yes	`R& K::operator ^=(S b);`	`R& operator ^=(K& a, S b);`
Bitwise left shift assignment	`a <<= b`	`a = a << b`	Yes	Yes	`R& K::operator <<=(S b);`	`R& operator <<=(K& a, S b);`
Bitwise right shift assignment^{[lower-alpha 4]}	`a >>= b`	`a = a >> b`	Yes	Yes	`R& K::operator >>=(S b);`	`R& operator >>=(K& a, S b);`

Member and pointer operators

Operator name	Syntax	Can overload in C++	Included in C	Prototype examples
Operator name	Syntax	Can overload in C++	Included in C	As member of K	Outside class definitions
Subscript	`a[b]`	Yes	Yes	`R& K::operator [](S b);`	N/A
Indirection ("object pointed to by a")	`*a`	Yes	Yes	`R& K::operator *();`	`R& operator *(K a);`
Address-of ("address of a")	`&a`	Yes	Yes	`R* K::operator &();`	`R* operator &(K a);`
Structure dereference ("member b of object pointed to by a")	`a->b`	Yes	Yes	`R* K::operator ->();`^{[lower-alpha 5]}	N/A
Structure reference ("member b of object a")	`a.b`	No	Yes	N/A
Member selected by pointer-to-member b of object pointed to by a^{[lower-alpha 6]}	`a->*b`	Yes	No	`R& K::operator ->*(S b);`	`R& operator ->*(K a, S b);`
Member of object a selected by pointer-to-member b	`a.*b`	No	No	N/A

Other operators

Operator name	Syntax	Can overload in C++	Included in C	Prototype examples
Operator name	Syntax	Can overload in C++	Included in C	As member of K	Outside class definitions
Function call See Function object.	`a(a1, a2)`	Yes	Yes	`R K::operator ()(S a, T b, ...);`	N/A
Comma	`a, b`	Yes	Yes	`R K::operator ,(S b);`	`R operator ,(K a, S b);`
Ternary conditional	`a ? b : c`	No	Yes	N/A
Scope resolution	`a::b`	No	No	N/A
User-defined literals^{[lower-alpha 7]} since C++11	`"a"_b`	Yes	No	N/A	`R operator "" _b(T a)`
Size-of	`sizeof (a)`^{[lower-alpha 8]} `sizeof (type)`	No	Yes	N/A
Size of parameter pack since C++11	`sizeof...(Args)`	No	No	N/A
Align-of since C++11	`alignof (type)` or `_Alignof (type)`^{[lower-alpha 9]}	No	Yes	N/A
Type identification	`typeid (a)` `typeid (type)`	No	No	N/A
Conversion (C-style cast)	`(type) a`	No	Yes	N/A
Conversion	`type(a)`	No	No	Note: behaves like const_cast/static_cast/reinterpret_cast^[2]
static_cast conversion	`static_cast<type>(a)`	Yes	No	`K::operator R();` `explicit K::operator R();` since C++11	N/A
static_cast conversion	`static_cast<type>(a)`	Yes	No	Note: for user-defined conversions, the return type implicitly and necessarily matches the operator name.
dynamic cast conversion	`dynamic_cast<type>(a)`	No	No	N/A
const_cast conversion	`const_cast<type>(a)`	No	No	N/A
reinterpret_cast conversion	`reinterpret_cast<type>(a)`	No	No	N/A
Allocate storage	`new type`	Yes	No	`void* K::operator new(size_t x);`	`void* operator new(size_t x);`
Allocate storage (array)	`new type[n]`	Yes	No	`void* K::operator new[](size_t a);`	`void* operator new[](size_t a);`
Deallocate storage	`delete a`	Yes	No	`void K::operator delete(void *a);`	`void operator delete(void *a);`
Deallocate storage (array)	`delete[] a`	Yes	No	`void K::operator delete[](void *a);`	`void operator delete[](void *a);`
Exception check since C++11	`noexcept(a)`	No	No	N/A

Notes:

↑ The modulus operator works just with integer operands, for floating point numbers a library function must be used instead (like fmod).
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Requires iso646.h in C. See C++ operator synonyms
1 2 In the context of iostreams, writers often will refer to << and >> as the "put-to" or "stream insertion" and "get-from" or "stream extraction" operators, respectively.
1 2 According to the C99 standard, the right shift of a negative number is implementation defined. Most implementations, e.g., the GCC,^[1] use an arithmetic shift (i.e., sign extension), but a logical shift is possible.
↑ The return type of operator->() must be a type for which the -> operation can be applied, such as a pointer type. If x is of type C where C overloads operator->(), x->y gets expanded to x.operator->()->y.
↑ Meyers, Scott (Oct 1999), "Implementing operator->* for Smart Pointers" (PDF), Dr.Dobbs, Aristeia .
↑ About C++11 User-defined literals
↑ The parentheses are not necessary when taking the size of a value, only when taking the size of a type. However, they are usually used regardless.
↑ C++ defines alignof operator, whereas C defines _Alignof. Both operators have the same semantics.

Operator precedence

The following is a table that lists the precedence and associativity of all the operators in the C and C++ languages (when the operators also exist in Java, Perl, PHP and many other recent languages, the precedence is the same as that given). Operators are listed top to bottom, in descending precedence. Descending precedence refers to the priority of the grouping of operators and operands. Considering an expression, an operator which is listed on some row will be grouped prior to any operator that is listed on a row further below it. Operators that are in the same cell (there may be several rows of operators listed in a cell) are grouped with the same precedence, in the given direction. An operator's precedence is unaffected by overloading.

The syntax of expressions in C and C++ is specified by a phrase structure grammar.^[3] The table given here has been inferred from the grammar. For the ISO C 1999 standard, section 6.5.6 note 71 states that the C grammar provided by the specification defines the precedence of the C operators, and also states that the operator precedence resulting from the grammar closely follows the specification's section ordering:

"The [C] syntax [i.e., grammar] specifies the precedence of operators in the evaluation of an expression, which is the same as the order of the major subclauses of this subclause, highest precedence first."^[4]

A precedence table, while mostly adequate, cannot resolve a few details. In particular, note that the ternary operator allows any arbitrary expression as its middle operand, despite being listed as having higher precedence than the assignment and comma operators. Thus a ? b , c : d is interpreted as a ? (b, c) : d, and not as the meaningless (a ? b), (c : d). Also, note that the immediate, unparenthesized result of a C cast expression cannot be the operand of sizeof. Therefore, sizeof (int) * x is interpreted as (sizeof(int)) * x and not sizeof ((int) *x).

Precedence	Operator	Description	Associativity
1 highest	`::`	Scope resolution (C++ only)	None
2	`++`	Postfix increment	Left-to-right
	`--`	Postfix decrement
	`()`	Function call
	`[]`	Array subscripting
	`.`	Element selection by reference
	`->`	Element selection through pointer
	`typeid()`	Run-time type information (C++ only) (see typeid)
	`const_cast`	Type cast (C++ only) (see const_cast)
	`dynamic_cast`	Type cast (C++ only) (see dynamic cast)
	`reinterpret_cast`	Type cast (C++ only) (see reinterpret_cast)
	`static_cast`	Type cast (C++ only) (see static_cast)
3	`++`	Prefix increment	Right-to-left
	`--`	Prefix decrement
	`+`	Unary plus
	`-`	Unary minus
	`!`	Logical NOT
	`~`	Bitwise NOT (One's Complement)
	`(type)`	Type cast
	`*`	Indirection (dereference)
	`&`	Address-of
	`sizeof`	Size-of
	`new`, `new[]`	Dynamic memory allocation (C++ only)
	`delete`, `delete[]`	Dynamic memory deallocation (C++ only)
4	`.*`	Pointer to member (C++ only)	Left-to-right
4	`->*`	Pointer to member (C++ only)	Left-to-right
5	`*`	Multiplication	Left-to-right
	`/`	Division
	`%`	Modulo (remainder)
6	`+`	Addition	Left-to-right
6	`-`	Subtraction	Left-to-right
7	`<<`	Bitwise left shift	Left-to-right
7	`>>`	Bitwise right shift	Left-to-right
8	`<`	Less than	Left-to-right
	`<=`	Less than or equal to
	`>`	Greater than
	`>=`	Greater than or equal to
9	`==`	Equal to	Left-to-right
9	`!=`	Not equal to	Left-to-right
10	`&`	Bitwise AND	Left-to-right
11	`^`	Bitwise XOR (exclusive or)	Left-to-right
12	`\|`	Bitwise OR (inclusive or)	Left-to-right
13	`&&`	Logical AND	Left-to-right
14	`\|\|`	Logical OR	Left-to-right
15	`?:`	Ternary conditional (see ?:)	Right-to-left
16	`=`	Direct assignment	Right-to-left
	`+=`	Assignment by sum
	`-=`	Assignment by difference
	`*=`	Assignment by product
	`/=`	Assignment by quotient
	`%=`	Assignment by remainder
	`<<=`	Assignment by bitwise left shift
	`>>=`	Assignment by bitwise right shift
	`&=`	Assignment by bitwise AND
	`^=`	Assignment by bitwise XOR
	`\|=`	Assignment by bitwise OR
17	`throw`	Throw operator (exceptions throwing, C++ only)	Right-to-left
18 lowest	`,`	Comma	Left-to-right

^[5]

Notes

The precedence table determines the order of binding in chained expressions, when it is not expressly specified by parentheses.

For example, ++x*3 is ambiguous without some precedence rule(s). The precedence table tells us that: x is 'bound' more tightly to ++ than to *, so that whatever ++ does (now or later—see below), it does it ONLY to x (and not to x*3); it is equivalent to (++x, x*3).
Similarly, with 3*x++, where though the post-fix ++ is designed to act AFTER the entire expression is evaluated, the precedence table makes it clear that ONLY x gets incremented (and NOT 3*x). In fact, the expression (tmp=x++, 3*tmp) is evaluated with tmp being a temporary value. It is functionally equivalent to something like (tmp=3*x, ++x, tmp).

Precedence and bindings

Abstracting the issue of precedence or binding, consider the diagram above for the expression 3+2*y[i]++. The compiler's job is to resolve the diagram into an expression, one in which several unary operators (call them 3+( . ), 2*( . ), ( . )++ and ( . )[ i ]) are competing to bind to y. The order of precedence table resolves the final sub-expression they each act upon: ( . )[ i ] acts only on y, ( . )++ acts only on y[i], 2*( . ) acts only on y[i]++ and 3+( . ) acts 'only' on 2*((y[i])++). It is important to note that WHAT sub-expression gets acted on by each operator is clear from the precedence table but WHEN each operator acts is not resolved by the precedence table; in this example, the ( . )++ operator acts only on y[i] by the precedence rules but binding levels alone do not indicate the timing of the postfix ++ (the ( . )++ operator acts only after y[i] is evaluated in the expression).

Many of the operators containing multi-character sequences are given "names" built from the operator name of each character. For example, += and -= are often called plus equal(s) and minus equal(s), instead of the more verbose "assignment by addition" and "assignment by subtraction". The binding of operators in C and C++ is specified (in the corresponding Standards) by a factored language grammar, rather than a precedence table. This creates some subtle conflicts. For example, in C, the syntax for a conditional expression is:

logical-OR-expression ? expression : conditional-expression

while in C++ it is:

logical-OR-expression ? expression : assignment-expression

Hence, the expression:

e = a < d ? a++ : a = d

is parsed differently in the two languages. In C, this expression is a syntax error, because the syntax for an assignment expression in C is:

unary-expression '=' assignment-expression

In C++, it is parsed as:

e = (a < d ? a++ : (a = d))

which is a valid expression.

Criticism of bitwise and equality operators precedence

The precedence of the bitwise logical operators has been criticized.^[6] Conceptually, & and | are arithmetic operators like * and +.

The expression a & b == 7 is syntactically parsed as a & (b == 7) whereas the expression a + b == 7 is parsed as (a + b) == 7. This requires parentheses to be used more often than they otherwise would.

Historically, there was no syntactic distinction between the bitwise and logical operators. In BCPL, B and early C, the operators && || didn't exist. Instead & | had different meaning depending on whether they are used in a ‘truth-value context’ (i.e. when a Boolean value was expected, for example in if (a==b & c) {...} it behaved as a logical operator, but in c = a & b it behaved as a bitwise one). It was retained so as to keep backward compatibility with existing installations.^[7]

Moreover, in C++ (and later versions of C) equality operations yield bool type values which are conceptually a single bit (1 or 0) and as such do not properly belong in "bitwise" operations.

C++ operator synonyms

C++ defines^[8] certain keywords to act as aliases for a number of operators:

Keyword	Operator
`and`	`&&`
`and_eq`	`&=`
`bitand`	`&`
`bitor`	`\|`
`compl`	`~`
`not`	`!`
`not_eq`	`!=`
`or`	`\|\|`
`or_eq`	`\|=`
`xor`	`^`
`xor_eq`	`^=`

These can be used exactly the same way as the punctuation symbols they replace, as they are not the same operator under a different name, but rather simple token replacements for the name (character string) of the respective operator. This means that the expressions (a > 0 and not flag) and (a > 0 && !flag) have identical meanings. It also means that, for example, the bitand keyword may be used to replace not only the bitwise-and operator but also the address-of operator, and it can even be used to specify reference types (e.g., int bitand ref = n). The ISO C specification makes allowance for these keywords as preprocessor macros in the header file iso646.h. For compatibility with C, C++ provides the header ciso646, the inclusion of which has no effect.

References

↑ "Integers implementation", GCC 4.3.3, GNU .
↑ Explicit type conversion in C++
↑ ISO/IEC 9899:201x Programming Languages - C. ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG14 — The C Standards Committee. 19 December 2011. p. 465. External link in |publisher= (help)
↑ the ISO C 1999 standard, section 6.5.6 note 71 (Technical report). ISO. 1999.
↑ https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/126fe14k(v=vs.80).aspx
↑ C history § Neonatal C, Bell labs .
↑ http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=1159769
↑ ISO/IEC 14882:1998(E) Programming Language C++. ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG21 — The C++ Standards Committee. 1 September 1998. pp. 40–41. External link in |publisher= (help)

External links

"Operators", C++ reference (wiki) .
Postfix Increment and Decrement Operators: ++ and -- (Developer network), Microsoft .

C programming language
ANSI C C89 and C90 C99 C11 Embedded C MISRA C
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