Java Order of Operations

Do you remember PEMDAS from school?

If you don’t it’s the order of operations in math problems. Stuff in parenthesis happens first, followed by exponents, multiplication and division, addition and subtraction. It’s why 3 + 7 * 2 is 17 and not 20.

How does that apply to computers, and specifically Java? Read on…

A Few Terms

Let’s start with a bit of vocabulary

Precedence Order

The first column below is the precedence of the operators. The higher the number, the higher the precedence. All else being equal, something on line 12 will happen before something on line 3.

For example, multiplication is on line 12 and addition is on line 11. That’s why 3 + 7 * 2 is 17 and not 20.

Associativity

If you’ve got multiple operators that are the same precedence, then the associativity comes into play. The associativity is either left-to-right or right-to-left.

We’ve got some simple math with 1 + 2 - 3. Addition and subtraction have the same precedence, so we need to look at the associativity. Addition is left-to-right, so we do 1 + 2 first, then subtract 3. That’s why 1 + 2 - 3 is 0.

Java Operator Precedence

Computer work in the same PEMDAS pattern for the most part. Here’s the Java operator precedence table:

Level Operator Associativity Description
16 [] left to right access array elements
16 . left to right access object member
16 () left to right parenthesis
15 ++ n/a unary post increment
15 -- n/a unary post increment
14 ++ left to right unary pre increment
14 -- left to right unary pre increment
14 + left to right unary plus
14 - left to right unary minus
14 ! left to right logical not
14 ~ left to right bitwise not
13 () right to left cast
13 new right to left object creation
12 * left to right multiplication
12 / left to right division
12 % left to right modulus
11 + left to right addition
11 - left to right subtraction
10 << left to right bitwise left shift
10 >> left to right bitwise right shift
10 >>> left to right bitwise right shift
9 < left to right less than
9 <= left to right less than or equal
9 > left to right greater than
9 >= left to right greater than or equal
9 instanceof left to right instance of
8 == left to right equal
8 != left to right not equal
7 & left to right bitwise and
6 ^ left to right bitwise xor
5 | left to right bitwise or
4 && left to right logical and
3 || left to right logical or
2 ?: right to left ternary
1 =, +=, -= right to left assignment
1 *=, /=, %= right to left assignment
1 <<=, >>=, >>>= right to left assignment
1 &=, ^=, |= right to left assignment

Interesting side note for you. This order of operator precedence is not specified in the language specification for Java, so you might see it a little different in different places. But it should be pretty close, and not different in ways that would change results.

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