What are C operators and Punctuators?

An operator is used to describe an operation applied to one or several objects. It is mainly meaningful in expressions, but also in declarations. It is generally a short sequence using non-alphanumeric characters.

A punctuator is used to separate or terminate a list of elements.

C operators and punctuators are as follows −

...   &&  -=  >=   ~   +   ;  ]

<<=   &=  ->  >>   %   ,   <  ^
>>=   *=  /=  ^=   &   -   =  {

!=    ++  <<  |=   (   .   >  |

%=    +=  <=  ||   )   /   ?  }

##    --  ==  !   *   :   [   #

Note that some sequences are used as operators and as punctuators, such as *, =, :, # and ,.

Several punctuators have to be used by pairs, such as ( ), [ ], { }.

When parsing the input text, the compiler tries to build the longest sequence as possible for a token, so when parsing a+++++b, the compiler will recognize the following −

a ++ ++ + b which is not a valid construct

The compiler will not consider the following −

a ++ + ++ b which may be valid