For the Short Code Snippet we have the Following Results. I am using gcc-version 3.4.4 under Cygwin. I would have expected the 2nd result to have been equal with the post-increment occurring after the comparison operation. Does the precedence of the closing ')' force the unary post-increment to execute before the comparison operation. I would have expected that the last result would have been not equal. What seems to be happening is either the original 'num' is being compared to itself or the pre-increment 'num' is being compared to itself. At first blush, this appears wrong. Have I misunderstood the semantics? skidmarks /************** Short Code Snippet *************/ int main() { int num = 10; if ( num++ == num ) { printf("( num++ == num )\n"); } else { printf("( num++ != num )\n"); } if ( num == num++) { printf("( num == num++)\n"); } else { printf("( num != num++)\n"); } if (++num == num) { printf("(++num == num )\n"); } else { printf("(++num != num )\n"); } if ( num == ++num) { printf("( num == ++num)\n"); } else { printf("( num != ++num)\n"); } } /************** Following Results *************/ ( num++ != num ) OK ( num != num++) Not so OK (++num == num ) OK ( num == ++num) Not So OK