C Primer Plus®, Third Edition

Fundamental Operators

C uses operators to represent arithmetic operations. For example, the + operator causes the two values flanking it to be added together. If the term "operator" seems odd to you, please keep in mind that those things had to be called something. "Operator" does seem to be a better choice than, say, "those things" or "arithmetical transactors." Now take a look at the operators used for basic arithmetic: =, +, −, *, and /. (C does not have an exponentiating operator. The standard C math library, however, provides a pow() function for that purpose. For example, pow(3.5, 2.2) returns 3.5 raised to the 2.2 power.)

Assignment Operator: =

In C, the equal sign does not mean "equals." Rather, it is a value-assigning operator. The statement ...