CHAPTER 7

EXPRESSIONS AND
ASSIGNMENT
STATEMENTS

Spring 2022
 Where are
we ?
We have studied Names and Types
2


 How they are declared, and their semantic

meanings
 Array X means a sequence of same elements …

 Next, let us study program structure

 Sequential code
 Branches, loops, function calls, …

 And their semantic meanings

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 Introducti
3
on
 Expressions and assignments are
fundamental in specifying computations
 Produce sequential code

 Let us study various issues associated

with
 Expressions
 Assignments

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 Arithmetic
4
Expressions
 Example
( 3 + b ) * a – func(14)

operators, operands, parentheses, and

function calls

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 Operato
rs
5  Different operators
 A unary operator has one operand
– –a, a ++, …
 A binary operator has two operands
a + b, a – b, …
 A ternary operator has three operands
(a>b) ? a : b // result is a if (a>b), or b if not
 Exercise:
 What is the value? a=10; a++; +
+a;
 legal or not ? ++a, a++, ++ a ++

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 Modulo
Operation
6  a modulo b
 Returns the remainder of division of a by b
 a = b  q + r, return r
 Straightforward if both a and b are positive
values
 What if a or b is negative ?
 Language-dependent, implementation-
dependent
 Ada:
mod: result has the same sign as divisor
(-10) mod 3 = 1
rem: result has the same sign as dividend
(-10) rem 3 = -1
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 Order of
7
Computation
 What is the order of computation if
a op1 b op2 c op3 d

 Operator precedence rule

 Define the order in which “adjacent” operators
of different precedence levels are evaluated
 Typical precedence levels
 parentheses
 unary operators
 ** (if the language supports it)
 *, /
 +, -

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 Order of Computation
8
(cont.)
 Operator associativity rule
 define the order in which adjacent operators with the
same precedence level are evaluated
 Typical associativity rules
 Left to right
a + b + c, a * b * d
 Exponentiation **
 Fortran: from right to left 2 ** 3 ** 4 = 2 81
≠8
4

 Ada: must use a parenthesis (2 ** 3) ** 4

 Visual basic 2 ** 3 ** 4 = 8 4 ≠ 2 81

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 Operator Associativity
9
Rule
 Only for operators at the same level
 Ada: (-10) mod 3 = 1
- 10 mod 3 = - (10 mod 3) = -1

 What if you are not sure of the

precedence or associativity ?
 What is of higher priority?
a * c mod 3
 Use parentheses !!!

a* ( c mod 3 )
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 Conditional
10
Expressions
 Conditional Expressions
 C-based languages (e.g., C, C++)
 An example:
average = (count == 0)? 0 : sum / count

 Evaluates as if written like

if (count == 0) average = 0
else average = sum /count

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 Operan
ds
11

 Operand evaluation order

1. Variables: fetch the value from memory
2. Constants: sometimes a fetch from memory;
sometimes the constant is in the machine
language instruction
3. Parenthesized expressions: evaluate all operands
and operators first
 Evaluation at the assembly level
 Idea: load to a register ld R1,
 Variable: memory location 100, 0(100)
 Constant: integer 100, li R1, 100
 Expression: after computation, add R1,
R2, R3
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 Functional Side
Effects
12

 Def: a function has side effects when it changes a two-way

parameter or a non-local variable
 Example: Int a = 5;
 The results depends on the
evaluation order Int fun1() {
 From left to right a = 17;
evaluate a, then func() func (int & x) Return 3;
=? { } /* end of fun1 */
 From right to left x = 12;
evaluate func(), then a return x+1; Void main() {
=?
} a = a + fun1();
} /* end of main */

The value computed for a in main depends on the order of

evaluation of the operands in the expression a + fun1(). The
value of a will be either 8(if a is evaluated first) or 20(if the
function call is evaluated first).
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 Solutions to Function Side
13
Effects
 Two possible solutions to the problem
when design a language
1. Disallow functional side effects
 No two-way parameters in functions
 No non-local references in functions
 Advantage: it works!
 Disadvantage: inflexibility of two-way
parameters and non-local references

2. Fix the operand evaluation order

 Disadvantage: limits some compiler
optimizations

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 Overloaded
Operators
14

 Use of an operator for more than one

purpose is called operator overloading
 Some are common (e.g., + for int and
float)

 Some have potential trouble: “/”

 In C/C++: “/” is overloaded for both int
and float
int a = 10, b = 4;
float c = a / b; what is the value of c ?
In Pascal: “div” for int, “/” for float
c:= a/b

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 Operator Overloading and
Readability
15

 As discussed, readability is one of the

most important evaluation criteria

 Operator overloading can aid readability

Matrix A, B, C, D;
A*B + C*D
MatrixAdd(MatrixMult(A,B), MatrixMult(C,D))

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 Type
16
Conversions
 Why “float c =10/3;” , c has value 3 ?

 narrowing conversion:
 Converts an object to a type that cannot include all of the
values of the original type
e.g. float to int
 widening conversion
 Converts an object to a type that can include at least
approximations to all of the values of the original type
e.g. int to float

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 Type Conversions: Mixed
17
Mode
 A mixed-mode expression is one that
has operands of different types
 A coercion is an implicit type conversion
 Disadvantage:
They decrease in the type error detection ability of the
compiler
 In most languages, all numeric types are
coerced in expressions, using widening
conversions

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 Explicit Type
18
Conversions
 Explicit Type Conversions
 Called casting in C-based language
 Examples
 C: (int) angle
 Ada: Float (sum)

Note that Ada’s syntax is similar to function

calls

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 Relational and Boolean
Expressions
19

 Relational Expressions
 Use relational operators and operands of
various types
 Evaluate to some Boolean representation
 Operator symbols used vary somewhat
among languages (!=, /=, .NE., <>, #)

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 Relational and Boolean
Expressions
20

 Boolean Expressions
 Operands are Boolean and the result is
Boolean
 Example operators

FORTRAN 77 FORTRAN 90 C Ada

.AND. and && and
.OR. or || or
.NOT. not ! not
xor
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 No Boolean Type
21
in C
 C has no Boolean type--it uses int type
with 0 for false and nonzero for true
 One odd characteristic of C’s
expressions:
a < b < c is a legal expression, but the
result is not what you might expect:
 Left operator is evaluated, producing 0 or 1
 The evaluation result is then compared with
the third operand (i.e., c)

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 Operator Precedence (with
22
logic op)
 Precedence of C-based operators
prefix ++, --
unary +, -, prefix ++, --, !
*,/,%
binary +, -
<, >, <=, >=
=, !=
&&
||

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 Short Circuit
23
Evaluation
 An expression in which the result is determined
without evaluating all of the operands and/or
operators

 Reason:
a && b if a is false, then result is
false
a || b if a is true, then result is true

 Example
( a>2) || ( b/13+c*23+d >1024)

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 Sometimes Short-circuit is
24
a Must
 Sometimes, we can have problem
without short-circuit evaluation
 index = 1;
while (index <= length) && (LIST[index] != value)
index++;
when index=length, LIST [index] will cause an
indexing problem (assuming LIST has length -1
elements)

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 Assignment
25
Statements
 The general syntax
<target_var> <assign_operator> <expression>
 The assignment operator
= FORTRAN, BASIC, PL/I, C, C++, Java
:= ALGOLs, Pascal, Ada
 = can be bad when it is overloaded for
the relational operator for equality

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 Conditional
26
Targets
 Conditional targets (C, C++, and Java)
(flag)? total : subtotal = 0

Which is equivalent to

if (flag)
total = 0
else
subtotal = 0

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 Compound
27
Operators
 A shorthand method of specifying a
commonly needed form of assignment
 Introduced in ALGOL; adopted by C
 Example

a = a + b

is written as

a += b
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 Assignment
Statements:
28
Unary Assignment
Operators
Unary assignment operators in C-based
languages combine increment and
decrement operations with assignment
 Examples
sum = ++count (count incremented, added to
sum)
sum = count++ (count incremented, added to
sum)
count++ (count incremented)
-count++ (count incremented then negated)
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 Assignment as an
29
Expression
 In C, C++, and Java, the assignment
statement produces a result and can be
used as operands
 An example:
while ((ch = getchar())!= EOF){…}

ch = getchar() is carried out; the result

(assigned to ch) is used as a conditional
value for the while statement
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 Mixed-Mode
30
Assignment
 Assignment statements can also be mixed-
mode, for example
int a, b;
float c;
c = a / b;
 In Pascal, integer variables can be assigned
to real variables, but real variables cannot
be assigned to integers
 In Java, only widening assignment coercions
are done
 In Ada, there is no assignment coercion
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