Increment/decrement operators

 

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Increment/decrement operators are unary operators that increment/decrement the value of a variable by 1.

They can be applied either postfix:

a++
a--

or prefix:

++a
--a

The returned result of the postfix version of the operator is the original operand, with a side-effect being that the operand is incremented/decremented after this result is returned.

The returned result of the prefix version of the operator is the incremented/decremented operand.

Therefore, the following lines all result in a being incremented by 1:

a = a + 1;
a += 1;
a++;
++a;

But, the value of b is not equal to the value of c after the execution of the following lines:

int a = 1;
int b = a++; // after execution: a equals 2, b equals 1
a = 1;
int c = ++a; // after execution: a equals 2, c equals 2

Example

Run this code

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
 
int main(void) {
 
  int a = 1;
  int b = 1;
 
  // Behaviour of the postfix increment and decrement operators.
  printf("\n");
  printf("original values: a == %d, b == %d\n", a, b);
  printf("result of postfix operators: a++ == %d, b-- == %d\n", a++, b--);
  printf("after postfix operators applied: a == %d, b == %d\n", a, b);
 
  // Reset a and b.
  a = 1;
  b = 1;
 
  // Behaviour of the prefix increment and decrement operators.
  printf("\n");
  printf("original values: a == %d, b == %d\n", a, b);
  printf("result of prefix operators: ++a == %d, --b == %d\n", ++a, --b);
  printf("after prefix operators applied: a == %d, b == %d\n", a, b);
 
  printf("\n");
 
  return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Output:

original values: a == 1, b == 1
result of postfix operators: a++ == 1, b-- == 1
after postfix operators applied: a == 2, b == 0
 
original values: a == 1, b == 1
result of prefix operators: ++a == 2, --b == 0
after prefix operators applied: a == 2, b == 0

Notes

Because of the side-effects involved, built-in increment and decrement operators must be used with care to avoid undefined behavior due to violations of sequencing rules.

See Also

Operator precedence

Common operators
assignment	increment decrement	arithmetic	logical	comparison	member access	other
a = b a += b a -= b a *= b a /= b a %= b a &= b a |= b a ^= b a <<= b a >>= b	++a --a a++ a--	+a -a a + b a - b a * b a / b a % b ~a a & b a | b a ^ b a << b a >> b	!a a && b a || b	a == b a != b a < b a > b a <= b a >= b	a[b] *a &a a->b a.b	a(...) a, b (type) a ? : sizeof _Alignof (since C11)