The last loop example showed an operator which was not yet introduced, namely ++. Its effect is to increment its operand, f in the example, by 1. Similarly, f- would decrease f by 1.
The increment and decrement operators can be used in a postfix notation, as in the example, or a prefix notation, as in -f. The difference between these notations is the value returned by the expression. The postfix notation returns the value of the variable before the modification; in prefix notation, the value of the expression the new value of the variable.
Given the fact that the value of a compound expression is the value of the last expression contained in the compound, f++ is identical to
{
int g = f;
f = f + 1;
g;
}
and -f equals
{
f = f - 1;
}
The last kind of operators to be introduced are the modifying assignment
operators. For example, f = f + x can be written as f +=
x. The same is true for every other binary operator. The precedence of
these operators is equal to that of the normal assignment (they are the
`etc' in table 2.3).