Understanding Operator Precedence in Programming
When writing code, one of the essential things to grasp is **operator precedence**. This concept determines the order in which parts of an expression are evaluated, much like following specific rules in math. If you don’t understand precedence, your program might not behave the way you expect, leading to incorrect results or even bugs.
What is Operator Precedence?
Think of operator precedence as a set of rules that decide which operation to perform first when there’s more than one in a single line of code. For example, in math, multiplication happens before addition. In programming, the same rule applies, but there are many more operators to consider.
Take this example in C++:
int result = 5 + 3 * 2;
Here, the multiplication operator (`*`) has a higher precedence than addition (`+`). So, the program calculates `3 * 2` first and then adds `5`, giving a result of `11`.
However, if you wanted addition to happen first, you’d use parentheses:
int result = (5 + 3) * 2;
Now the result is `16`. Parentheses are your way of telling the program, “Hey, do this part first!”
