Pre-Increment and Post-Increment Operators Comparison

We will discuss the functionality and speed and property of the pre-increment and post-increment operators by comparing them with small programs:

#include

int main(void) {

int var1 = 5;

int var2 = 5;

int var3 = 5;

int var4 = 5;

printf("var1: %d\n", var1);

printf("var2: %d\n", var2);

printf("var3: %d\n", var3);

printf("var4: %d\n", var4);

printf("\n");

printf("++var1: %d\n", ++var1);

printf("var2++: %d\n", var2++);

printf("PreIncrement(var3): %d\n", PreIncrement(&var3));

printf("PostIncrement(var4): %d\n", PostIncrement(&var4));

printf("\n");

printf("var1: %d\n", var1);

printf("var2: %d\n", var2);

printf("var3: %d\n", var3);

printf("var4: %d\n", var4);

return 0;

}

int PreIncrement(int *a) {

*a = *a + 1;

return *a;

}

int PostIncrement(int *a) {

int temp = *a;

*a = *a + 1;

return temp;

}

The Output will be:

var1: 5

var2: 5

var3: 5

var4: 5

++var1: 6

var2++: 5

PreIncrement(var3): 6

PostIncrement(var4): 5

var1: 6

var2: 6

var3: 6

var4: 6

The following is a description collected from:

Practical C Programming, Third Edition - O'Reilly Media

The two forms of the increment operator are called the prefix form (++x) and the

postfix form (x++). Which form should you use? Actually in C your choice doesn't

matter. However, if you use C++ with its overloadable operators, the prefix version

(++x) is more efficient. So, to develop good habits for learning C++, use the prefix

form.