Swift Operator precedence

Operator precedence is a collection of rules used in order to evaluate a given mathematical expression. When there are several operators used in a single expression, each part is evaluated in a certain order called as operator precedence. Certain operators have higher priority than others which affects how an expression is evaluated.

Operator precedence table

The table below lists the precedence of operators in Swift. Higher it appears in the table, the higher its precedence.

Example 1: Swift Operator Precedence

let x = 4 + 5 * 5
print(x)

When you run the above program, the output will be:

29

In the above example, if you read the expression from left to right, you might expect the output to be 45. But, multiplication operator has a higher precedence than addition operator so the expression 4 + 5 * 5 is evaluated as 4 + (5 * 5) . Therefore print(x) outputs 29 in the screen.

Example 2: Swift Operator Precedence with complex assignment operator

var y = 15
y += 10 - 2 * 3
print(y)

When you run the above program, the output will be:

19

In the above example, the expression var y = 15 assigns value 15 in the variable y.

In the next expression y += 10 - 2 * 3 the multiplication operator has a higher precedence than subtraction & compound assignment operator(+=).

Therefore, the expression y += 10 - 2 * 3 is evaluated as y = y + (10 - (2 * 3)).

Swift Operator Associativity

Although there are predefined rules defined by operator precedence to evaluate an expression, you might be wondering what happens if there are multiple operators of the same precedence level. The operator associativity defines how operators of the same precedence are grouped together.

In Swift, operators can be either left-associative, right-associative or have no associativity. Operators that are left-associative, group their operands from the left of the statement, right-associative operators from the right and operators with no associativity have no defined behaviour when used in sequence in an expression.

Operator associativity table

The table below shows the associativity of Swift operators along with the precedence.

Example 3: Swift Operator Associativity

let x =  40  / 2 * 10
print(x)

When you run the above program, the output will be:

200

In the above program, the expression is evaluated from left to right because the operators fall into multiplication precedence groups and has left associativity. Therefore, the division operation takes place earlier and you get the result 200. What if you want to execute the multiplication first? You need to wrap the 2 * 10 expression into () braces as:

let x =  40  / (2 * 10)
print(x)

When you run the above program, the output will be:

2

You don’t need to memorize the precedence and associative table. Most of the time, the precedence and associativity of operators makes sense in itself. You can always use the table for reference when in doubt. Also, it’s better to use parenthesis to make your code easier to understand.