C# Operator

C# Operators are symbols that tells the .NET CLR to perform specific operations on operands for producing the final result. C# has a number of standard operators, taken from C, C++ and Java. Most of these should be quite familiar to programmers.

The table below lists the standard operators. Note that when writing classes it is possible to change the default behaviour of some of these operators (ie to ‘overload’ the operator), although this should only be done where the resultant semantics makes sense. The below table also indicates which of the operators are overloadable.

C# Primary Operators
C# Unary Operators
C# Type Operators
C# Arithmetic Operators
C# Relational And Logical Operators
C# Operator Overloading

C# Primary Operators

Name	Syntax Example	Overloadable?
Grouping	`(a+b)`	No
Member	`A.B`	No
Struct pointer member access	`A->B`	No
Method call	`f(x)`	No
Post increment	`c++`	Yes
Post decrement	`c--`	Yes
Constructor call	`c = new Coord();`	No
Array stack allocation	`int* c = stackalloc int[10]`	No
Struct size retrieval	`sizeof (int)`	No
Arithmetic check on	`checked {byte c = (byte) d;}`	No
Arithmetic check off	`unchecked {byte c = (byte) d;}`	No

C# Unary Operators

Name	Syntax Example	Overloadable?
Positive value	`+10`	Yes
Negative value	`-10`	Yes
Not	`!(c==d)`	Yes
Bitwise complement	`~(int x)`	Yes
Pre increment	`++c`	Yes
Pre decrement	`--c`	Yes
Type cast	`(myType)c`	No
Value at address	`int* c = d;`	No
Address value of	`int* c = &d;`	No

C# Type Operators

Name	Syntax Example	Overloadable?
Type equality / compatibility	`a is String`	No
Type retrieval	`typeof (int)`	No

C# Arithmetic Operators

Name	Syntax Example	Overloadable?
Multiplication	`c*d`	Yes
Division	`c/d`	Yes
Remainder	`c%d`	Yes
Addition	`c+d`	Yes
Subtraction	`c-d`	Yes
Shift bits right	`c>>3`	Yes
Shift bits left	`c<<3`	Yes

C# Relational And Logical Operators

Name	Syntax Example	Overloadable?
Less than	`c<d`	Yes
Greater than	`c>d`	Yes
Less than or equal to	`c<=d`	Yes
Greater than or equal to	`c>=d`	Yes
Equality	`c==d`	Yes
Inequality	`c!=d`	Yes
Bitwise and	`c&d`	Yes
Bitwise or	`c\|d`	Yes
Logical and	`c&&d`	No
Logical or	`c\|\|d`	No
Conditional	`int c=(d<10) ? 5:15`	No

C# Operator Overloading

To overload an operator in a class, one defines a method using the ‘operator’ keyword. For instance, the following code overloads the equality operator.

public static bool operator == (Value a, Value b)
{
	return a.Int == b.Int
}

Where an operator is one of a logical pair, both operators should be overwritten if any one is. These pairs are the following:

== and !=
< and >
<= and >=

Written by
Shadman Kudchikar
I'm a passionate software developer living in Mumbai, India. I am a technology enthusiast and enjoy developing with all technologies, especially with .NET.

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