Operators and Expressions:

Operators and expression using numeric and

relational operators, mixed operands, type
conversion, logical operators, bit
operations, assignment operator, operator
precedence and associativity.

Computer System and programming in C 1

 Objectives
♥ To be able to construct and evaluate
expressions.
♥ To master operator precedence and
associativity
♥ To understand implicit type conversion and
explicit type conversion.

Computer System and programming in C 2

 Introduction
 An operator is a symbol that tells the computer to perform
certain manipulations.
 An expression is a sequence of operands and operators that
reduces to a single value.
 C operators can be classified into a number of categories.
 Arithmetic operators
 Relational operators
 Logical operators
 Assignment operators
 Increment and decrement operators
 Conditional operators
 Bitwise operators
 Special operators

Computer System and programming in C 3

 4

Arithmetic operators
 The arithmetic operators in C

Operator meaning
+ Addition or unary plus
- Subtraction or unary minus
* Multiplication
/ Division
% modulo division
 5

Arithmetic operators
 Note:,
 Integer division truncates remainder
 The % operator cannot be applied to a float or double.
 The precedence of arithmetic operators
 Unary + or -
 * / %
 + -
#include<stdio.h>
main()
{
int months , days ;
printf ( "Enter days \n “ ) ;
scanf ( "%d“ , &days ) ;
months = days / 30 ;
days = days % 30 ;
printf ( "Months =%d Days= %d \n", months, days);
}

Computer System and programming in C 6

 7

Arithmetic expressions
 An arithmetic expression is a combination of variables,
constants, and operators.
 For example,
 a*b-c  a*b-c
 (m+n)(x+y)  (m+n)*(x+y)
 ax2+bx+c  a*x*x+b*x+c
 8

Mathematical functions
 Mathematical functions such as cos, sqrt, log, etc. are
frequently used in analysis of real-life problems. Table
3.9 on page 72 lists some standard math functions.

 We should include the line

#include<math.h>

in the beginning of the program.

 9

Mathematical functions
 for example
 the roots of ax2+bx+c =0 are
2
b  b  4 ac
x 2a

 x1= ( -b + sqrt ( b*b - 4*a*c ) ) / ( 2 * a )

 x2= ( -b – sqrt ( b*b - 4*a*c ) ) / ( 2 * a )
 10

Relational Operators
• The relational operators in C are :

Operator Meaning
< less that
<= less than or equal to
> greater than
>= greater than or equal to
== equal to
!= not equal to
 Relational Operators
 A relational expression yields a value of 1 or 0.
 5<6 1
 -34 + 8 > 23 - 5 0
 if a=3, b=2, c =1; then a > b > c is ?

 the associativity of relational operators is

left  right
 table3.8 on page71

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 Relational Operators
 The relational operators >, >=, < and <= have the
same precedence. Just below them in precedence are
the equality operators: = = and !=.
 Relational operators have lower precedence than
arithmetic operators , so an expression like i<
lim-1 is taken as i < (lim-1).

 3 >= 2 = = -4 < 0

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Logical operators
 C has the following three logical operators
 && meaning logical and
 || meaning logical or
 ! meaning logical not ( unary operator )
 Expressions connected by && or || are evaluated left to
right, and evaluation stops as soon as the truth or
falsehood of the result is known.

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 14

Logical operators
op-1 op2 op-1&&op-2 op-1||op-2 !op-1
Non-zero Non-zero 1 1 0
Non-zero 0 0 1 0
0 Non-zero 0 1 1
0 0 0 0 1
Logical operators
 The precedence of && is higher than that of ||, and
both are lower than relational operators, so

 3 < 5 && -3 < -5 || 3 > 2

 char ch; to decide whether ch is an uppercase,
ch >= ‘A’ && ch <= ‘Z’
 to decide whether a year is leap year,
year% 4 ==0 && year % 100 != 0 || year % 400 = = 0

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 Assignment operators
 Assignment operators are used to assign the result of an
expression to a variable.
 C has a set of ‘shorthand’ assignment operators of the form
v op= exp;
 where v is a variable, exp is an expression and op is a C
binary arithmetic operator. The operator op= is known as
the shorthand assignment operator.
 The assignment statement v op= exp; is equivalent to v
= v op (exp) ;
 For example, x += y + 1; This is same as the statement x =
x+(y+1);

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 17

Assignment operators

Statement with simple Statement with shorthand

assignment operator operator
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
 Assignment operators
 The use of shorthand assignment operators has three
advantages:
 1. What appears on the left-hand side need not
be repeated and therefore it becomes easier to
write.
 2. The statement is more concise and easier to
read.
 3. The statement is more efficient.

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Assignment operators
 int a=12, n=5;
 (1) a += a
 (2) a -= 2
 (3) a *= 2 + 3
 (4) a /= a + a
 (5) a % = ( n %= 2 )
 (6) a += a -= a *= a

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Increment and decrement
operators
 C provides two unusual operators for incrementing
and decrementing variables.
 The increment operator ++ adds 1 to its operand, while
the decrement operator -- subtracts 1.
 The unusual aspect is that ++ and -- may be used
either as prefix operators (before the variable, as in
++n), or postfix operators (after the variable: n++).
 In both cases, the effect is to increment n. But the
expression ++n increments n before its value is used,
while n++ increments n after its value has been used.

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 for example, if n is 5, then
x = n++;
is equivalent
x = n; n++;
but
x = ++n;
is equivalent
n++; x = n;
 The increment and decrement operators can only be
applied to variables; an expression like (i+j)++ is illegal.
Computer System and programming in C 21
 The increment and decrement operators can be used
in complex statements. Example:
m=n++ -j +10;

 Consider the expression

m = - n++ ;
 The precedence of ++ and – operators are the same as
those of unary + and -.
 The associatively of them is right to left.
 m = - n++; is equivalent to m = - (n++)

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 suppose,
 int a, b, c ; a = b = c = 1;
 After execution the following statements, what are the
values of the expression and variables.
 (1) a>b && b>c++;
(2) a-- || c++;
(3) !a && b++;
(4) ++a && ++b && ++c;
(5) ++a && --b && ++c;
Computer System and programming in C 23
 Conditional operator
 a ternary operator pair “? : ” is available in C to
construct conditional expressions of the form
expr1 ? expr2 : expr3
 the expression expr1 is evaluated first. If it is non-zero
(true), then the expression expr2 is evaluated, and that
is the value of the conditional expression. Otherwise
expr3 is evaluated, and that is the value. Only one of
expr2 and expr3 is evaluated.

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Special operators
 1. The Comma Operator
 The comma operator can be used to link the related
expressions together. A comma-linked list of
expressions is evaluated left to right and the 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 the value 10 to x, then assigns 5 to y, and
finally assigns 15 to value. Since comma operator has
the lowest precedence of all operators, the parentheses
are necessary.
Computer System and programming in C 25
 2. The sizeof Operator
 The sizeof is a compile time operator and, when used
with an operand, it returns the number of bytes the
operand occupies. The operand may be variable, a
constant or a data type qualifier. Examples:
 m = sizeof ( sum );
 n = sizeof ( long int );
 k = sizeof ( 235L );

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Example 3.3
The different kinds of operators.

#include<stdio.h>
main()
{
int a, b, c, d;
a = 15;
b = 10;
c = ++a - b;
printf ("a=%d b=%d c=%d\n", a, b, c );
d = b++ +a;
printf("a = %d b = %d d = %d\n", a, b, d );
printf("a/b = %d\n", a / b);
printf("a%%b = %d\n", a%b );
printf("a *= b = %d\n", a *= b );
printf("%d\n", ( c>d ) ? 1 : 0 );
printf("%d\n", ( c<d ) ? 1 : 0 );
}

Computer System and programming in C 27

example3.4 variables in expressions and their evaluation

#include<stdio.h>
main()
{
float a, b, c, x, y, z;
a = 9;
b = 12;
c = 3;
x = a – b / 3 + c * 2 - 1;
y = a - b / ( 3+ c ) * ( 2 - 1 );
z = a - ( b / ( 3 + c ) * 2 ) - 1;
printf ( "x = %f \n", x );
printf(" y = %f \n", y ) ;
printf( "z = %f \n", z ) ;
}

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Some Computational Problems
 When expressions include real values, then it is
important to take necessary precautions to guard
against certain computational errors. For example,
consider the following statements:
 a = 1.0 / 3.0;
 b = a * 3.0;
 There is no guarantee that the value of b will equal 1.
 Another problem is division by zero.
 The third problem is to avoid overflow and underflow
errors.
Computer System and programming in C 29
example3.5 round-off errors in computation of floating point numbers.
#include <stdio.h>
main()
{
float sum, n, term;
int count = 1;
sum = 0;
printf ( "Enter value of n \n " ) ;
scanf ( "%f", &n ) ;
term = 1.0 / n;
while ( count <= n )
{
sum = sum + term ;
count++ ;
}
printf ( "Sum = %f \n", sum ) ;
}

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Type conversions in expressions
 1. Implicit Type Conversion
 C permits mixing of constants and variables of
different types in an expression. C automatically
converts any intermediate values to the proper type so
that the expression can be evaluated without loosing
any significance. This automatic conversion is known
as implicit type conversion.
 The rule of type conversion: the lower type is
automatically converted to the higher type.

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Type conversions in expressions
 for example,
 int i, x;
x = li / i + i * f – d
 float f; long float
 double d;
long float
 long int li ;

float

float

double

int double

 The final result of an expression is converted to the

type of the variable on the left of the assignment.
Computer System and programming in C 32
Type conversions in expressions
 The sequence of rules is given on page 67.

 Conversion Hierarchy is given below

long double
Conversion hierarchy double
float
unsigned long int
long int
int
short char

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Type conversions in expressions
 2. Explicit conversion
 We can force a type conversion in a way .
 The general form of explicit conversion is
( type-name ) expression
 for example
 x = ( int ) 7.5 ;
 a = ( int ) 21.3 / (int) 4.5;
 a = ( float ) 3 / 2 ;
 a = float ( 3 / 2 ) ;

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Operator precedence and
Associativity
 Rules of Precedence and Associativity
 (1)Precedence rules decides the order in which different
operators are applied.
 (2)Associativity rule decide the order in which multiple
occurrences of the same level operator are applied.
 Table3.8 on page71 shows the summary of C Operators.
 for example,
 a = i +1== j || k and 3 != x

Computer System and programming in C 35

Mathematical functions
 Mathematical functions such as cos, sqrt, log, etc. are
frequently used in analysis of real-life problems.
 Table 3.9 on page 72 lists some standard math
functions.
 All mathematical functions implement double type
parameters and return double type values.
 To use any of mathematical functions, we should
include the line:
#include < math. h >

Computer System and programming in C 36