17. Associativity

In addition to precedence, operators have another property called ‘associativity’, which comes into play when operators with the same precedence appear in an expression. Associativity is the order in which operators of the same precedence are processed.

• Left-associative operators are evaluated from left to right.

• Right-associative operators are evaluated from right to left.

Almost all operators in C# are left-associative, meaning that operations are performed from left to right. For example, the expression 5 - 3 - 1 yields 1 and not 3. Because subtraction is left-associative, the expression is computed as (5 - 3) - 1 and not 5 - (3 - 1).

However, there are some operators in C# that are right-associative, that is, they group from right to left. A notable example is the assignment operator =. In an expression like a = b = 5, the operation proceeds from right to left, i.e., a = (b = 5). Here, b is first assigned the value 5, and then a is assigned the value of b, which is now 5. So, both a and b end up with the value 5.

Understanding precedence and associativity is crucial to understanding how expressions involving multiple operators are evaluated in C#. As a developer, it allows you to write and read code more accurately.