C++ Increment and Decrement Operators

Increment and Decrement Operators are the Unary Operators as they operate on a single operand. They are ++ and -- operators. ++ is used to increase the value by 1 and — is used to decrease the value by 1. There are two kinds of Increment and Decrement Operators.

• Post-Increment or Post-Decrement:
  First, the value is used for operation and then incremented or decremented. Represented as a++ or a–.
• Pre-Increment Pre-Decrement:
  Here First the value is incremented or decremented then used for the operation. Represented as ++a or –a.

Let us understand the post and pre with an example.

Example: C++ program for Increment and Decrement Operators

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main()
{
   int a = 11;
   int result;

   //a value is not increased instantly, it will be increased after the assignment
   result = a++;
   cout << "Value of a++: " << result << endl;	//prints 11

   //now the value of is increased by 1
   cout << "value of a: " << a << endl;	//prints 12

   //the value is increased before the assignment
   result = ++a;
   cout << "Value of ++a: " << result << endl;	//prints 13

   return 0;
}

Output:

Value of a++: 11
value of a: 12
Value of ++a: 13