Difference between pre-increment and post-increment in a loop?

Question

Is there a difference in ++i and i++ in a for loop? Is it simply a syntax thing?

Answer 1

Yes, there is. The difference is in the return value. The return value of "++i" will be the value after incrementing i. The return of "i++" will be the value before incrementing. This means that code that looks like the following:

int a = 0;
int b = ++a; // a is incremented and the result after incrementing is saved to b.
int c = a++; // a is incremented again and the result before incremening is saved to c.

Therefore, a would be 2, and b and c would each be 1.

I could rewrite the code like this:

int a = 0; 

// ++a;
a = a + 1; // incrementing first.
b = a; // setting second. 

// a++;
c = a; // setting first. 
a = a + 1; // incrementing second.