Operators in C Language

C language supports a rich set of built-in operators. An operator is a symbol that tells the compiler to perform certain mathematical or logical manipulations. Operators are used in program to manipulate data and variables.

C operators can be classified into following types:

·         Arithmetic operators

·         Relation operators

·         Logical operators

·         Bitwise operators

·         Assignment operators

·         Conditional operators

·         Special operators

1.  Arithmetic operators:

C supports all the basic arithmetic operators. The following table shows all the basic arithmetic operators.

Operator	Description
+	adds two operands
-	subtract second operands from first
*	multiply two operand
/	divide numerator by denominator
%	remainder of division
++	Increment operator increases integer value by one
--	Decrement operator decreases integer value by one

2.  Relation operators:

The following table shows all relation operators supported by C.

Operator	Description
==	Check if two operand are equal
!=	Check if two operand are not equal.
>	Check if operand on the left is greater than operand on the right
<	Check operand on the left is smaller than right operand
>=	check left operand is greater than or equal to right operand
<=	Check if operand on left is smaller than or equal to right operand

3.  Logical operators:

C language supports following 3 logical operators. Suppose a=1 and b=0,

Operator	Description	Example
&&	Logical AND	(a && b) is false
||	Logical OR	(a || b) is true
!	Logical NOT	(!a) is false

4.  Bitwise operators:

Bitwise operators perform manipulations of data at bit level. These operators also perform shifting of bits from right to left. Bitwise operators are not applied to float or double.

Operator	Description
&	Bitwise AND
|	Bitwise OR
^	Bitwise exclusive OR
<<	left shift
>>	right shift

Now let’s see truth table for bitwise &, | and ^

a	b	a & b	a | b	a ^ b
0	0	0	0	0
0	1	0	1	1
1	0	0	1	1
1	1	1	1	0

The bitwise shift operators shifts the bit value. The left operand specifies the value to be shifted and the right operand specifies the number of positions that the bits in the value are to be shifted. Both operands have the same precedence.

Example:

a = 0001000

b= 2

a << b = 0100000

a >> b = 0000010

5.  Assignment Operators

Assignment operators supported by C language are as follows.

Operator	Description	Example
=	assigns values from right side operands to left side operand	a=b
+=	adds right operand to the left operand and assign the result to left	a+=b is same as a=a+b
-=	subtracts right operand from the left operand and assign the result to left operand	a-=b is same as a=a-b
*=	mutiply left operand with the right operand and assign the result to left operand	a*=b is same as a=a*b
/=	divides left operand with the right operand and assign the result to left operand	a/=b is same as a=a/b
%=	calculate modulus using two operands and assign the result to left operand	a%=b is same as a=a%b

6.  Conditional operator:

It is also known as ternary operator and used to evaluate conditional expression.

epr1 ? expr2 : expr3

If epr1 Condition is true ? Then value expr2 : Otherwise value expr3

7.  Special operator:

Operator	Description	Example
sizeof	Returns the size of an variable	sizeof(x) return size of the variable x
&	Returns the address of an variable	&x ; return address of the variable x
*	Pointer to a variable	*x ; will be pointer to a variable x

These were some of the operators that are supported by C Language. To know the use of these Operators in C Program please visit my YouTube Channel Semicolon Programming.

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