What is the "-->" operator in C/C++?

Question

After reading Hidden Features and Dark Corners of C++/STL on comp.lang.c++.moderated, I was completely surprised that the following snippet compiled and worked in both Visual Studio 2008 and G++ 4.4.

Here's the code:

#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
    int x = 10;
    while (x --> 0) // x goes to 0
    {
        printf("%d ", x);
    }
}

Output:

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

I'd assume this is C, since it works in GCC as well. Where is this defined in the standard, and where has it come from?

Answer 1

--> is not an operator. It is in fact two separate operators, -- and >.

The conditional's code decrements x, while returning x's original (not decremented) value, and then compares the original value with 0 using the > operator.

To better understand, the statement could be written as follows:

while( (x--) > 0 )

Answer 2

Or for something completely different... x slides to 0.

while (x --\
            \
             \
              \
               > 0)
     printf("%d ", x);

Not so mathematical, but... every picture paints a thousand words...

Answer 3

That's a very complicated operator, so even ISO/IEC JTC1 (Joint Technical Committee 1) placed its description in two different parts of the C++ Standard.

Joking aside, they are two different operators: -- and > described respectively in §5.2.6/2 and §5.9 of the C++03 Standard.

Answer 4

x can go to zero even faster in the opposite direction:

int x = 10;

while( 0 <---- x )
{
   printf("%d ", x);
}

8 6 4 2

You can control speed with an arrow!

int x = 100;

while( 0 <-------------------- x )
{
   printf("%d ", x);
}

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10

;)

Answer 5

It's equivalent to

while (x-- > 0)

x-- (post decrement) is equivalent to x = x-1 so, the code transforms to:

while(x > 0) {
    x = x-1;
    // logic
}
x--;   // The post decrement done when x <= 0

Answer 6

It's

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
  int x = 10;
  while (x-- > 0) { // x goes to 0
    printf("%d ", x);
  }
  return 0;
}

Just the space makes the things look funny, -- decrements and > compares.

Answer 7

The usage of --> has historical relevance. Decrementing was (and still is in some cases), faster than incrementing on the x86 architecture. Using --> suggests that x is going to 0, and appeals to those with mathematical backgrounds.

Answer 8

Utterly geek, but I will be using this:

#define as ;while

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
    int n = atoi(argv[1]);
    do printf("n is %d\n", n) as ( n --> 0);
    return 0;
}

Answer 9

while( x-- > 0 )

is how that's parsed.

Answer 10

One book I read (I don't remember correctly which book) stated: Compilers try to parse expressions to the biggest token by using the left right rule.

In this case, the expression:

x-->0

Parses to biggest tokens:

token 1: x
token 2: --
token 3: >
token 4: 0
conclude: x-- > 0

The same rule applies to this expression:

a-----b

After parse:

token 1: a
token 2: --
token 3: --
token 4: -
token 5: b
conclude: (a--)-- - b

I hope this helps to understand the complicated expression ^^

Answer 11

This is exactly the same as

while (x--)

Answer 12

Anyway, we have a "goes to" operator now. "-->" is easy to be remembered as a direction, and "while x goes to zero" is meaning-straight.

Furthermore, it is a little more efficient than "for (x = 10; x > 0; x --)" on some platforms.

Answer 13

This code first compares x and 0 and then decrements x. (Also said in the first answer: You're post-decrementing x and then comparing x and 0 with the > operator.) See the output of this code:

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

We now first compare and then decrement by seeing 0 in the output.

If we want to first decrement and then compare, use this code:

#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
    int x = 10;

    while( --x> 0 ) // x goes to 0
    {
        printf("%d ", x);
    }
    return 0;
}

That output is:

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Answer 14

My compiler will print out 9876543210 when I run this code.

#include <iostream>
int main()
{
    int x = 10;

    while( x --> 0 ) // x goes to 0
    {
        std::cout << x;
    }
}

As expected. The while( x-- > 0 ) actually means while( x > 0). The x-- post decrements x.

while( x > 0 ) 
{
    x--;
    std::cout << x;
}

is a different way of writing the same thing.

It is nice that the original looks like "while x goes to 0" though.

Answer 15

There is a space missing between -- and >. x is post decremented, that is, decremented after checking the condition x>0 ?.

Answer 16

-- is the decrement operator and > is the greater-than operator.

The two operators are applied as a single one like -->.

Answer 17

It's a combination of two operators. First -- is for decrementing the value, and > is for checking whether the value is greater than the right-hand operand.

#include<stdio.h>

int main()
{
    int x = 10;

    while (x-- > 0)
        printf("%d ",x);

    return 0;
}

The output will be:

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0            

Answer 18

Actually, x is post-decrementing and with that condition is being checked. It's not -->, it's (x--) > 0

Note: value of x is changed after the condition is checked, because it post-decrementing. Some similar cases can also occur, for example:

-->    x-->0
++>    x++>0
-->=   x-->=0
++>=   x++>=0

Answer 19

C and C++ obey the "maximum munch" rule. The same way a---b is translated to (a--) - b, in your case x-->0 translates to (x--)>0.

What the rule says essentially is that going left to right, expressions are formed by taking the maximum of characters which will form an valid expression.

Answer 20

Why all the complication?

The simple answer to the original question is just:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    int x = 10;
    while (x > 0)
    {
        printf("%d ", x);
        x = x-1;
    }
}

It does the same thing. I am not saying you should do it like this, but it does the same thing and would have answered the question in one post.

The x-- is just shorthand for the above, and > is just a normal greater-than operator. No big mystery!

There are too many people making simple things complicated nowadays ;)

Answer 21

Conventional way we define condition in while loop parenthesis"()" and terminating condition inside the braces"{}", but this -- & > is a way one defines all at once. For example:

int abc(){
    int a = 5
    while((a--) > 0){ // Decrement and comparison both at once
        // Code
    }
}

It says, decrement a and run the loop till the time a is greater than 0

Other way it should have been like:

int abc() {
    int a = 5;
    while(a > 0) {
        a = a -1 // Decrement inside loop
        // Code
    }
}

Both ways, we do the same thing and achieve the same goals.

Answer 22

(x --> 0) means (x-- > 0).

1. You can use (x -->)
Output: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

2. You can use (-- x > 0) It's mean (--x > 0)
Output: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

3. You can use

(--\
    \
     x > 0)

Output: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

4. You can use

(\
  \
   x --> 0)

Output: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

5. You can use

(\
  \
   x --> 0
          \
           \
            )

Output: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

6. You can use also

(
 x 
  --> 
      0
       )

Output: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Likewise, you can try lot of methods to execute this command successfully.

Answer 23

char sep = '\n'  /1\
; int i = 68    /1  \
; while (i  ---      1\
                       \
                       /1/1/1                               /1\
                                                            /1\
                                                            /1\
                                                            /1\
                                                            /1\
                            /           1\
                           /            1 \
                          /             1  \
                         /              1   \
                         /1            /1    \
                          /1          /1      \
                           /1        /1        /1/1> 0) std::cout \
                              <<i<<                               sep;

For larger numbers, C++20 introduces some more advanced looping features. First to catch i we can build an inverse loop-de-loop and deflect it onto the std::ostream. However, the speed of i is implementation-defined, so we can use the new C++20 speed operator <<i<< to speed it up. We must also catch it by building wall, if we don't, i leaves the scope and de referencing it causes undefined behavior. To specify the separator, we can use:

 std::cout \
           sep

and there we have a for loop from 67 to 1.

Answer 24

This --> is not an operator at all. We have an operator like ->, but not like -->. It is just a wrong interpretation of while(x-- >0) which simply means x has the post decrement operator and this loop will run till it is greater than zero.

Another simple way of writing this code would be while(x--). The while loop will stop whenever it gets a false condition and here there is only one case, i.e., 0. So it will stop when the x value is decremented to zero.

Answer 25

Here -- is the unary post decrement operator.

 while (x-- > 0) // x goes to 0
 {
     printf("%d ", x);
 }

• In the beginning, the condition will evaluate as (x > 0) // 10 > 0
• Now because the condition is true, it will go into the loop with a decremented value x-- // x = 9
• That's why the first printed value is 9
• And so on. In the last loop x=1, so the condition is true. As per the unary operator, the value changed to x = 0 at the time of print.
• Now, x = 0, which evaluates the condition (x > 0 ) as false and the while loop exits.

Answer 26

--> is not an operator, it is the juxtaposition of -- (post-decrement) and > (greater than comparison).

The loop will look more familiar as:

#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
    int x = 10;
    while (x-- > 0) { // x goes to 0
        printf("%d ", x);
    }
}

This loop is a classic idiom to enumerate values between 10 (the excluded upper bound) and 0 the included lower bound, useful to iterate over the elements of an array from the last to the first.

The initial value 10 is the total number of iterations (for example the length of the array), and one plus the first value used inside the loop. The 0 is the last value of x inside the loop, hence the comment x goes to 0.

Note that the value of x after the loop completes is -1.

Note also that this loop will operate the same way if x has an unsigned type such as size_t, which is a strong advantage over the naive alternative for (i = length-1; i >= 0; i--).

For this reason, I am actually a fan of this surprising syntax: while (x --> 0). I find this idiom eye-catching and elegant, just like for (;;) vs: while (1) (which looks confusingly similar to while (l)). It also works in other languages whose syntax is inspired by C: C++, Objective-C, java, javascript, C# to name a few.