Question

I ran the following code snippet

int n=0;
for(int m=0;m<5;m++){
n=n++;
System.out.print(n)}

I got the output as 00000 when i expected 01234. Can someone explain why

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

n=n++; should be just n++; or n=n+1; (or even n=++n; if you want)

n++ does the increment but will return the value of n before the increment took place. So in this case you’re incrementing n, but then setting n to be the value before the increment took place, effectively meaning n doesn’t change.

The ++ operator can either be used as prefix or postfix. In postfix form (n++) the expression evaluates to n, but in the prefix case (++n) the expression will evaluate to n+1. Just using them on their own has the same outcome though, in that n‘s value will increment by 1.