c/language/operator incdec

Increment/decrement operators are unary operators that increment/decrement the value of a variable by 1.

They can have postfix form:

As well as the prefix form:

The operand of both prefix and postfix increment or decrement must be a  of  (including  and enums), real floating type, or a pointer type. It may be cvr-qualified, unqualified, or.

The result of the postfix increment and decrement operators is the value of.

The result of the prefix increment operator is the result of adding the value to the value of : the expression  is equivalent to. The result of the prefix decrement operator is the result of subtracting the value from the value of : the expression  is equivalent to.

Increment operators initiate the side-effect of adding the value of appropriate type to the operand. Decrement operators initiate the side-effect of subtracting the value of appropriate type from the operand. As with any other side-effects, these operations complete at or before the next.

See for limitations on pointer arithmetic, as well as for implicit conversions applied to the operands.