Operator Precedence

All operators have a particular “precedence” depending on which group the operator falls in (operators of the same group have equal precedence). Meaning some operators will be applied before others. What follows is a list of groups (containing their respective operators) ordered by precedence (highest first):

• Primary Operators

  • a.b - Member access.
  • a?.b - Null conditional member access.
  • -> - Pointer dereferencing combined with member access.
  • f(x) - Function invocation.
  • a - Indexer.
  • a? - Null conditional indexer.
  • x++ - Postfix increment.
  • x-- - Postfix decrement.
  • new - Type instantiation.
  • default(T) - Returns the default initialized value of type T.
  • typeof - Returns the Type object of the operand.
  • checked - Enables numeric overflow checking.
  • unchecked - Disables numeric overflow checking.
  • delegate - Declares and returns a delegate instance.
  • sizeof - Returns the size in bytes of the type operand.

• Unary Operators

  • +x - Returns x.
  • -x - Numeric negation.
  • !x - Logical negation.
  • ~x - Bitwise complement/declares destructors.
  • ++x - Prefix increment.
  • --x - Prefix decrement.
  • (T)x - Type casting.
  • await - Awaits a Task.
  • &x - Returns the address (pointer) of x.
  • *x - Pointer dereferencing.

• Multiplicative Operators

  • x * y - Multiplication.
  • x / y - Division.
  • x % y - Modulus.

• Additive Operators

  • x + y - Addition.
  • x – y - Subtraction.

• Bitwise Shift Operators

  • x << y - Shift bits left.
  • x >> y - Shift bits right.

• Relational/Type-testing Operators

  • x < y - Less than.
  • x > y - Greater than.
  • x <= y - Less than or equal to.
  • x >= y - Greater than or equal to.
  • is - Type compatibility.
  • as - Type conversion.

• Equality Operators

  • x == y - Equality.
  • x != y - Not equal.

• Logical AND Operator

  • x & y - Logical/bitwise AND.

• Logical XOR Operator

  • x ^ y - Logical/bitwise XOR.

• Logical OR Operator

  • x | y - Logical/bitwise OR.

• Conditional AND Operator

  • x && y - Short-circuiting logical AND.

• Conditional OR Operator

  • x || y - Short-circuiting logical OR.

• Null-coalescing Operator

  • x ?? y - Returns x if it is not null; otherwise, returns y.

• Conditional Operator

  • x ? y : z - Evaluates/returns y if x is true; otherwise, evaluates z.