Operator precedence determines the order in which operators are grouped when an expression contains multiple operators. Operators with higher precedence are grouped before operators with lower precedence.

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    int result;

    result = 10 + 5 * 2;

    printf("result = %d\n", result);

    return 0;
}

Example Output #

result = 20

Explanation #

The expression:

10 + 5 * 2

contains + and *. Multiplication has higher precedence than addition, so it is grouped first:

10 + (5 * 2)

The result is therefore 20.

Parentheses have higher precedence than the operators inside the expression and can be used to explicitly change the grouping:

result = (10 + 5) * 2;

This produces 30.

Operator Precedence Table #

The following table lists the commonly used C operators from higher precedence to lower precedence.

Precedence determines grouping; associativity determines grouping when operators have the same precedence.