What is x after “x = x++”?

Question

What happens (behind the curtains) when this is executed?

int x = 7;
x = x++;

That is, when a variable is post incremented and assigned to

Answer 1

Post Increment operator works as follows:

1. Store previous value of operand.
2. Increment the value of the operand.
3. Return the previous value of the operand.

So the statement

int x = 7;
x = x++; 

would be evaluated as follows:

1. x is initialized with value 7
2. post increment operator stores previous value of x i.e. 7 to return.
3. Increments the x, so now x is 8
4. Returns the previous value of x i.e. 7 and it is assigned back to x, so x again becomes 7

So x is indeed increased but since x++ is assigning result back to x so value of x is overridden to its previous value.