Unary Operator in C

The unary operators are operators that work with a single operand, or in other words, they operate on a single value or variable. C supports several unary operators, each with its own specific functionality. Here are some common unary operators in C:

1. Unary Plus (+): It simply returns the operand’s value with a positive sign. This operator is rarely used, as it doesn’t change the value of the operand. Example:

 int x = 5;
 int result = +x; // result will be 5

2. Unary Minus (-): It negates the value of the operand. If the operand is positive, it becomes negative, and if it’s negative, it becomes positive. Example:

 int x = 5;
 int result = -x; // result will be -5

3. Increment (++): It increases the value of the operand by 1. It can be used as a prefix (++x) or a postfix (x++) operator. Example:

 int x = 5;
 int result = ++x; // result will be 6, and x becomes 6

4. Decrement (--): It decreases the value of the operand by 1. Like the increment operator, it can be used as a prefix (--x) or a postfix (x--) operator. Example:

 int x = 5;
 int result = x--; // result will be 5, but x becomes 4

5. Logical NOT (!): It reverses the logical value of the operand. If the operand is true (non-zero), it becomes false (0), and if it’s false (0), it becomes true (non-zero). Example:

 int isTrue = 1;
 int isFalse = !isTrue; // isFalse will be 0

6. Bitwise NOT (~): It performs bitwise negation on each bit of the operand, changing 0s to 1s and vice versa. Example:

 unsigned int x = 5; 
 // Binary: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0101
 
 unsigned int result = ~x; 
 // Binary: 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1010, result will be a large positive integer

7. Address-of (&): It returns the memory address of the operand (variable). It is often used with pointers to store the address of a variable. Example:

 int x = 5;
 int *ptr = &x; // ptr now contains the address of x

8. Indirection (Dereference) (*): It is used with pointers to access the value stored at the memory address pointed to by the operand. Example:

 int x = 5;
 int *ptr = &x;
 int value = *ptr; 
 // value will be 5 (the value stored at the memory address pointed to by ptr)

Unary operators are essential in C and are used for a variety of tasks, including arithmetic operations, logical operations, and memory manipulation.