14.2 Operators

Expressions are constructed from operands and operators. The operators of an
expression indicate which
operations to apply to the operands. [Example: Examples of operators
include +, -, *, /, and new. Examples
of operands include literals, fields, local variables, and expressions. end
example]
There are three kinds of operators:
?Unary operators. The unary operators take one operand and use either
prefix notation (such as ?x) or
postfix notation (such as x++).
?Binary operators. The binary operators take two operands and all use
infix notation (such as x + y).
?Ternary operator. Only one ternary operator, ?:, exists; it takes three
operands and uses infix notation
(c ? x : y).
The order of evaluation of operators in an expression is determined by the
precedence and associativity of
the operators (?4.2.1).
The order in which operands in an expression are evaluated, is left to
right. [Example: For example, in
F(i) + G(i++) * H(i), method F is called using the old value of i, then
method G is called with the old
value of i, and, finally, method H is called with the new value of i. This
is separate from and unrelated to
operator precedence. end example] Certain operators can be overloaded.
Operator overloading permits userdefined
operator implementations to be specified for operations where one or both
of the operands are of a
user-defined class or struct type (?4.2.2).