These are additions to words that alter their meaning.
A prefix, is added at the beginning of a word, is added and the can by just a single letter 'a'. e.g. politicakl and apolitical or sexxual and asexual. The 'a' means 'not'.
A postfix is more correctly named as a 'suffix'. is added at the end of a word. e.g. morn, and 'morning', or 'amend' and 'amended'.
Both the prefix and the postfix increment operators increment the operand. The difference is what is the value of the expression during the evaluation of the expression. In the prefix form, the value is already incremented. In the postfix form, it is not. int a = 1; int b = ++a; // both a and b are now equal to 2 int a = 1; int b = a++; // a is equal to 2 and b is equal to 1
Because there is not an "order of operations" in prefix or postfix notation. The order in which you put the numbers and operators is the order in which calculation occurs.
(a + b) * c / ((x - y) * z)
Example: prefix: * 2 + 3 4 infix: 2 * (3+4) postfix: 2 3 4 + *
convert to perfixed to postfixed
infix: old Egyptians/Assirs some thousands year before prefix: Jan Łukasiewicz (Polish Notation) postfix: Burks, Warren, and Wright (Reverse Polish Notation)
the prefix is different
A postfix incrementation or decrementation is handled by the ++ and -- operators. Postfix specifically refers to adding the operator after the variable name (eg. i++). This will attempt to increase/decrease the data type by 1. It differs from prefix in that it will return the variable before the calculation.Example:int i = 1;System.out.print(i++); //1System.out.print(i); //2
The prefix "intra" means within, while the prefix "inter" means between.
In terms of the C++ programming language itself, C++ literally means "the successor to C". In terms of the operator, operator++ is the increment operator. It has two forms: prefix (++c) and postfix (c++). Both do exactly the same thing and are effectively shorthand for the more verbose c = c + 1 or the more concise c += 1. The difference between the the prefix and postfix versions is in their evaluation. ++c will evaluate to c + 1 while c++ evaluates to c (the value of before the increment). However, the evaluations are only of importance when used in compound expressions: int a, b, c = 42; a = c++; // a==42, c==43 b = ++c; // b==44, c==44 Where the evaluation is of no importance, we can use either form. However, for user-defined types, the postfix operator usually incurs an overhead. This can be demonstrated by the following minimal example: struct foo { int i; foo& operator++ () { // prefix increment ++i; // increment this->i return *this; // return the incremented object } foo& operator++ (int) { // postfix increment foo f {*this}; // copy this object ++i; // increment this->i return f; // return the pre-incremented object } // ... }; Note that in both cases, the object itself is incremented, the only difference is in what value is returned to the caller (the newly incremented object or the original non-incremented object). However, because postfix increment requires that we copy the original value, we incur an overhead. The more complex the object, the greater that overhead will be. Built-in types do not suffer the copy overhead because the copy can be factored away by the compiler. Even so, it's a good idea to get into the habit of using prefix increment for built-in types unless you have good reason to use postfix increment. Similarly, it is usually a good idea to omit the postfix operator from user-defined classes unless we have good reason to provide it. Note that the postfix operator has an unused int argument in order to differentiate it from the prefix operator. The way to remember which is which is that the prefix operator has no argument, which is in common with all the other unary member operators. The postfix operator is the anomaly, thus it gets the dummy argument. The prefix and postfix decrement operators (operator--) work in a similar way, except they decrement the operand rather than increment it.
The increment operator in C++ is defined by operator++(). All arithmetic types (char, int, float, double, long, short, long long and long double) and all pointer types except void* are supported by operator++(). User-defined types can overload operator++() to provide support where required. operator++() has two versions, prefix increment and postfix increment. Prefix increment behaves as one would expect, incrementing the operand by 1 and returning the modified value. Postfix increment also increments the operand, however, the return value is the pre-incremented value. To understand the difference between prefix and postfix, consider the following: int i = 0; int j = ++i; // i=1, j=1 int i = 0; int j = i++; // i=1, j=0
++j is the prefix increment operator while j++ is the postfix increment operator. The same applies to --j and j++, the prefix and postfix decrement operators. The difference between prefix and postfix increment is not the operation itself -- they both increment the operand, which is j. The difference is in the evaluation of that operation -- the value that is returned by the operation. Prefix will increment j and return a reference to j. Postfix essentially copies j, increments j, and returns a reference to the copy. In other words: If j is 1, ++j increments j (so j is 2) and returns a reference to j (which is now 2). If j is 1, j++ copies j (which is 1), increments j (making it 2) and returns the copy (which is still 1). When j is a primitive (such as int), no copy is actually made (the return value is pre-emptied by the CPU). Thus there is no difference in terms of performance, the only difference is the return value. However, when j is a non-primitive, such as a class type, the postfix operator must physically copy the class instance, increment the original instance and then return the copy. As such there will be a performance penalty. If you have no use for the return value, performance will be improved if you use prefix rather than postfix. The more complex the class, the more obvious the difference will become when repeatedly incrementing a class in a loop. although there is no difference in performance with primitives, it is good practice to use the prefix increment at all times, and use postfix only when you actually need the original value of the operand. Once you get into the habit of using prefix by default, you'll avoid making unnecessary copies of classes other than when you actually need to. In other words, use for( int x=0; x< 10; ++x ) rather than for( int x=0; x<10; x++ ), regardless of whether x is a primitive or a class type. In both cases, the return value is ignored, but it still exists. To capture the return value, you must assign it to another variable. Such as int y = x++, or use the operator in a compound expression (where the result is used as part of a larger expression). Postifx increment is often used with pointers and arrays, to assign a value to the current element being pointed to before advancing the pointer to the next element: int x[2]; int * p = x; *p++ = 1; // assigns x[0] and then advances to x[1]. *p = 2; // assigns x[1]. Thus x[0] is 1 while x[1] is 2.