Increment and decrement operator

By: Ted H, on 11.18.2009, filed under Learning Java and tagged as Java basics .

Java has increment and decrement operator pretty much like C, C++ and C# and other languages. They do behave predictably the same too.



class IncDec {
	public static void main(String []args){

		int a = 0;

		int b = 0;

		int x = a++;

		int y = ++b;

		System.out.println(“Value of a = ” + x); //a = 0

		System.out.println(“value of b = ” + y); //b = 1

	}
}

You can copy the code above and save it to a file named IncDec.java, then compile and run it as

$ javac IncDec.java
$ java IncDec

Just note the behavior of postfix and prefix operator when applied to expressions. In the example code above, a still results to 0 even if wrote ‘x = a++’, the assignment of the current value of a (which is zero) has been assigned to x first, then a’s value has been recalculated/incremented. While in the other statement ‘y = ++b’, the value stored in the y variable is the calculated/incremented value of b.

Be careful when using the increment/decrement operators.

If you want to show appreciation for my efforts dear reader, you could buy me a tall hazel nut Americano ($2) via PayPal. Thanks

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Increment and decrement operator

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