CSC – 183

Programming C
Chapter - 4

Operators and Expressions

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Today’s Outline:
• C operators
• Operator Precedence & Associativity
• C Expression Evaluation
• Type Conversion in Expressions

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C Operators
• An operator is a symbol that tells the computer to perform certain
mathematical or logical manipulations.

• Operators used in programs to manipulate data & variables.

• C is very rich in built-in operators, classified into following number of

categories:
1. Arithmetic
2. Relational
3. Logical
4. Assignment
5. Increment/Decrement
6. Conditional
7. Bitwise
8. Special
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C Operators – Arithmetic Operators
• Following table lists C’s arithmetic operators:
Operator Meaning
+ Addition or unary plus
- Subtraction or unary minus
* Multiplication
/ Division
% Modulus

• Integer division(/) truncates any fractional part (remainder).

• Modulus operator (%) can not used be used on floating-point
data. During modulus operation, sign of the result is always the
sign of the first operand.
• Example:
- 11 % 2 = - 1
- 11 % 2 = - 1
OPERAND: 11 % 2 = REMAINDER: 1
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C Operators – Arithmetic Operators (Cont.)
• Application of modulus operator
– From total days find out months and rest days.
total_days = 66 days.
= 2 months and 6 days
– Find out a number is odd or even by checking its reminder.
– Determine a number is divided by a specific number.
– If(6%3==0){printf(“even number”);}
• Exercise (Home work):
– Write a program, it takes days as input and determine numbers
of years, months, weeks and rest days.

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C Operators – Relational Operators
• Sometimes need to compare two quantities, depending on their
relation, to take certain decisions.
• These comparisons can be done with the help of relational
operators.
– Compare: age of two persons, value of two number.
• Expressions that use relational operators return 0 for false & 1 for
true.
Operator Meaning
> Is greater than
>= Is greater than or equal to
< Is less than
<= Is less than or equal to
== Is equal to
!= Is not equal to

• Example: marks > 89 , 10<20 is true, 20<10 is false

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C Operators – Relational Operators
• Exercise:
4.5 <= 10 ?
4.5 < -10 ?
-35 >= 0 ?
10 < (7+5) ?
(a+b) < (c+d) ?
a=0 b = 6 c= 5 d = 2
6 < 7 NO

4.5 <= 10 TRUE

4.5 < -10 FALSE
-35 >= 0 FALSE
10 < (7+5) TRUE
(a+b) < (c+d) ? (depends on value of a,b,c,d)
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C Operators – Relational Operators (Program)
To find out the large number between two number:

#include<stdio.h>
Int main()
{
int num1,num2;
num1 = 25;
num2 = 20;
if(num1 > num2)
{
printf(“num1 is large”);
}
else
{
printf(“num2 is large”);

}
return 0;
}
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C Operators – Logical Operators
• Logical refers to the ways relationships can be connected.
• Used when need more than one condition to take decision.
• Expressions that use logical operators return 0 for false & 1 for true.
• The truth table for logical operators is shown below:

Operator Meaning P Q P && Q P || Q !P

0 0 0 0 1
&& AND
0 1 0 1 1
|| OR
1 1 1 1 0
! NOT
1 0 0 1 0
• Some examples:
To check age between 18 to 30
if( age > 18 && age<30 ) allow to apply for job
To check Grade:
if( marks > 0 && marks < 60) then Grade is F
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Leap Year Program: using logical opeators
#include<stdio.h>

int main()
{
int year;
printf("Enter a year: ");
scanf("%d",&year);
if((year%4 == 0) && (year%100 != 0) || (year%400 == 0))
{
printf("\n%d is a leap year",year);
}
else
{
printf("\n%d is not a leap year",year);
}
return 0;
}
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C Operators – Assignment Operator
• ‘=‘ used to assign the result of an expression to a variable.
General form: variable_name = expression; c = a+b
• Multiple assignments: x = y = z = 0;
• Compound assignments: The statement of the form var = var
operator expression can be written as var operator =
expression
e.g. x = x + 1 can written as x += 1
• It also called shorthand assignment operator.
Operator Operator Example
+= X=X+1 X += 1
-= X=X-1 X -= 1
*= X=X*Y X *= Y
/= X=X/Y X /= Y
%= X=X%Y X %= Y

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C Operators – Increment/Decrement
• ‘ ++ ’ adds 1 to its operand and ‘ -- ’ subtracts 1 from its operand.
• x = x +1 is same as ++x or x++ and x=x -1 same as --x or x--
• Both the increment and decrement operator may either in prefix or
postfix form.
• When postfix (x++ or x--) is used with a variable in an expression, the
expression is evaluated first using the original value of the variable and
then the variable is incremented (or decremented) by one. i.e
• m = 5; y = m++;
• m=? y=?
• Result: m = 6; y= 5
• When prefix (++x or --x) is used in an expression, the variable is
incremented (or decremented) first and then the expression is evaluated
using new value of the variable.
• m = 5; y = ++m;
• m=? y=?
• Result: m = 6 ; y = 6

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C Operators – Conditional Operator
• Also called ternary operator “ ?: ”
• General form: exp1 ? exp2 : exp3
– exp1, exp2, exp3 are expression. i.e. a + b, a < b, a == b
• Operation same as if-then-else statement

a = 10; if (a > b)
x = a;
b = 15;
else
x = ( a > b) ? a : b; x = b;

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C Operators – Bitwise Operators
• To manipulate data bit level, bitwise operators used.
• Bitwise operation refers to testing, setting, or shifting the
actual bits in a byte or word, which correspond to the
standard char or int data types.
• Bitwise operator can not be used on float, double, long
double or void data types.
Operator Meaning
& AND
| OR
^ XOR
~ One’s Complement (NOT)
>> Shift right
<< Shift left
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C Operators – Special Operators
• Comma operator: (,)
Comma operator can be used to link the related expression
together.
Ex: int a, b, c; a=1, b=2, c=3;
• Sizeof operator: Returns the number of bytes, occupied by
operand.
m = sizeof(sum);
i = sizeof(int);
• Pointer operator: ( & and * )
• Member selection operator: ( . and -> )
• Exercise: Example 3.3

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Arithmetic Expressions:
• An arithmetic expression is a combination of variables,
constants and operators and function calls by maintaining C
syntax.
• C does not have an operator for exponentiation.
• Expression represent in C:

Algebraic expression C expression

a x b -c a*b-c
(m+n)(x+y) (m+n)*(x+y)
3x2+2x+1 3*x*x + 2*x + 1
 x
  c
 y 
x/y+c

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Precedence and Associativity
• Precedence: Decides the order in which different operators are
evaluates or calculated. Give priority to operators.
• x = 9 - 12 / 3 + 3 * 2 - 1
• x=9-4+3*2-1
• x=9-4+6-1
• x=5+6-1
• x = 11- 1
• x = 10
• Associativity: Decide the calculation order of expression when
multiple operators have same precedence in an expression.
Decides Left to Right or Right to Left evaluation.
• x=3*2*2+5*2 (Left to Right)
• x=6*2+5*2
• x = 12 + 5 * 2
• x = 12+ 10
• x = 22
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Evaluation of Expressions:
• variable = expression;
x = a – b / 3 + c * 2 – 1;
y = a – b / (3 + c) * (2 – 1);
z = a – (b / (3 + c) * 2) – 1;

If a = 9 , b = 12, c = 3; what is value of x, y, z?

x = 10
y=7
z=4

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C Type Conversion: Two Types
• Implicit type conversion: C automatically converts any
intermediate values to the proper type so that the expression
can be evaluated without loosing any significance, called
implicit type conversion.
• Rule: If the operands are of different types, the ‘lower type’ is
automatically converted to ‘higher type’ before operation
proceeds.
• int i,x;
• float f;
• double d;
• x=i*f+d
» i automatically converted to float type, then multiplication performs.
» Then (i * f) converted to double and add with d.
» Then final result will converted to int type, data type of x.

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C Type Conversion: Two Types
• Explicit type conversion: When we force an expression to be
a specific type, called explicit type conversion.
• General form: (data_type) expression;
• e.g. int x;
float y = 20.0;
x = (int) (y + 10.5);
• a = (int) 21.3 / (int)4.5 equivalent to a = 21/4 = 5
• x = (int) a + b [a converted to integer and add with b]

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