Operator Precedence and Associativity

Operator precedence and associativity determine the order in which operators are evaluated in expressions. Precedence specifies which operator is evaluated first when multiple operators are present, while Associativity defines the order of evaluation for operators with the same precedence.

Here is a table of operators in order of Precedence:

Associativity

Associativity determines the direction in which operators of the same precedence level are evaluated:

• Left-to-right: Most operators (e.g., +, -, *, /, etc.) are evaluated from left to right.
• Right-to-left: Some operators like assignment (=) and unary operators (++, --, sizeof, etc.) are evaluated from right to left.

Examples:

#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
    int x = 5 + 2 * 3;     // Multiplication (*) has higher precedence than addition (+).
    printf("x = %d\n", x);
    return 0;
}

#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
    int x = 10;
    int y = 5;
    int z = 3;
    x = y = z;          // Assignment has right-to-left associativity.
    printf("x = %d, y = %d\n", x, y);
    return 0;
}

#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
    int x = 5, y = 10, z = 15;
    int result = x + y * z / 5;      // * and / have higher precedence than +.
    printf("result = %d\n", result);
    return 0;
}