C Operator Precedence table with Associativity

This post demonstrates the list of operators available and their precedence with associativity in C.

What is Operator Precedence?

 

Operator precedence determines how operators are grouped, when different operators appear close by in one expression. For example, '*' has higher precedence than '+'. Thus, the expression a+b*c means to multiply b and c, and then add a to the product (i.e., a+(b*c)). You can overrule the precedence of the operators by using parenthesis. For example, consider the expression a+b*c, you want to first add and then multiply. In this case, write the expression as (a+b)*c.

What is Associativity?

 

If two operators has the same precedence, then associativity tells you in which direction the expression will be carried out by grouping operators. For example, '+' and '-' have the same precedence. Thus the expression a+b-c means to add a and b, and then subtract c from the addition (i.e., (a+b)-c). The expression is carried out from left to right direction.

Precedence - How operators are grouped in an expression. Associativity - In what order operators of equal precedence are grouped in an expression.

List of C operators in order of precedence (highest to lowest) -

 

Operator	Description	Associativity
( ) [ ] . -> ++ --	Parentheses (function call) (see Note 1) Brackets (array subscript) Member selection via object name Member selection via pointer Postfix increment/decrement (see Note 2)	left-to-right
++ -- + - ! ~ (type) * & sizeof	Prefix increment/decrement Unary plus/minus Logical negation/bitwise complement Cast (convert value to temporary value of type) Dereference Address (of operand) Determine size in bytes on this implementation	right-to-left
* / %	Multiplication/division/modulus	left-to-right
+ -	Addition/subtraction	left-to-right
<>	Bitwise shift left, Bitwise shift right	left-to-right
< >=	Relational less than/less than or equal to Relational greater than/greater than or equal to	left-to-right
== !=	Relational is equal to/is not equal to	left-to-right
&	Bitwise AND	left-to-right
^	Bitwise exclusive OR	left-to-right
|	Bitwise inclusive OR	left-to-right
&&	Logical AND	left-to-right
| |	Logical OR	left-to-right
? :	Ternary conditional	right-to-left
= += -= *= /= %= &= ^= |= <>=	Assignment Addition/subtraction assignment Multiplication/division assignment Modulus/bitwise AND assignment Bitwise exclusive/inclusive OR assignment Bitwise shift left/right assignment	right-to-left
,	Comma (separate expressions)	left-to-right
Note 1: Parentheses are also used to group sub-expressions to force a different precedence; such parenthetical expressions can be nested and are evaluated from inner to outer. Note 2: Postfix increment/decrement have high precedence, but the actual increment or decrement of the operand is delayed (to be accomplished sometime before the statement completes execution). So in the statement y = x * z++; the current value of z is used to evaluate the expression (i.e., z++ evaluates to z) and z only incremented after all else is done. See postinc.c for another example.

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Karthik Byggari

Author & Editor

Computer Science graduate, Techie, Founder of logicallyproven, Love to Share and Read About pprogramming related things.