Question

The following code prints out “3”, not “4” as you might expect.

public class Foo2 {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int a=1, b=2;             
        a = b + a++;
        System.out.println(a);
    } 
}

I understand how. The postfix increment happens after the value of “a” has been loaded. (See below).

What I don’t quite understand is the why. The operator precedence of postfix ++ is higher than + so shouldn’t it execute first?

% javap -c Foo2

Compiled from "Foo2.java"
public class Foo2 extends java.lang.Object{
public Foo2();
  Code:
   0:   aload_0
   1:   invokespecial   #1; //Method java/lang/Object."<init>":()V
   4:   return

public static void main(java.lang.String[]);
  Code:
   0:   iconst_1
   1:   istore_1
   2:   iconst_2
   3:   istore_2
   4:   iload_2
   5:   iload_1
   6:   iinc    1, 1
   9:   iadd
   10:  istore_1
   11:  getstatic       #2; //Field java/lang/System.out:Ljava/io/PrintStream;
   14:  iload_1
   15:  invokevirtual   #3; //Method java/io/PrintStream.println:(I)V
   18:  return

Answer 1

Postfix ++ increments the value of variable, and returns the value that was there before the increment. Thus, the return value of operator++ in your example will be 1, and of course 1 + 2 will give 3, which is then assigned to a. By the time of assignment, ++ has already incremented the value of a to 2 (because of precedence), so = overwrites that incremented value.