Arithmetic Operators in C

The Arithmetic operators are some of the C Programming Operator, which are used to perform arithmetic operations includes operators like Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division and Modulus.

All these Arithmetic operators in C are binary operators which means they operate on two operands.

Below table shows all the Arithmetic Operators in C Programming with examples.

Arithmetic Operators in C Example

In this arithmetic operator in c program, We are using two variables a and b and their values are 12 and 3.

We are going to use these two variables to perform various arithmetic operations present in C Language

/* Program to Perform Arithmetic Operations in C */

#include<stdio.h>

int main()
{
 int a = 12, b = 3;
 int addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, modulus;
 
 addition = a + b; //addition of 3 and 12
 subtraction = a - b; //subtract 3 from 12
 multiplication = a * b; //Multiplying both
 division = a / b; //dividing 12 by 3 (number of times)
 modulus = a % b; //calculation the remainder
 
 printf("Addition of two numbers a, b is : %d\n", addition);
 printf("Subtraction of two numbers a, b is : %d\n", subtraction);
 printf("Multiplication of two numbers a, b is : %d\n", multiplication);
 printf("Division of two numbers a, b is : %d\n", division);
 printf("Modulus of two numbers a, b is : %d\n", modulus);

}

OUTPUT

NOTE: When we are using division (/) operator the result will completely depend upon the data type it belongs to.

For example, if the data type is an integer then division arithmetic operators in c will produce the integer value by rounding the value (5 / 2 = 2).

If you want the correct result then change the data type to float. Don’t get confused, let’s see one more example for better understanding

Arithmetic Operators in C using Float

For this arithmetic operators in c example, We are using two variables a and b and their values are 7 and 3. We are going to use these two variables to show the problems we generally face while performing arithmetic operations on Int and Float Datatype.

/* C Program to Perform Division and Modulus on Float data type */

#include<stdio.h> 

int main()
{
 int a = 7, b = 3;
 int integerdiv, modulus;
 float floatdiv;
 
 integerdiv = a / b; // dividing 7 by 3
 modulus = a % b; // calculation the remainder
 floatdiv = (float)a / b; // Converting int to float
 
 printf("Division of two numbers a, b is : %d\n", integerdiv);
 printf("Modulus of two numbers a, b is : %d\n", modulus);

 printf("---------Correct Results is------- \n");
 printf("Division of two numbers a, b is : %f\n", floatdiv);

}

OUTPUT

Within the above arithmetic operators in c example, If you notice the result, we got two different results for the same calculation. Because for the first result, both a and b are integers and the output is also an integer (integerdiv). So the compiler neglects the term after the decimal point and shows answer 2 instead of 2.3333 and a % b is 1 because the remainder is 1.

Next, we changed the output data type to float (floatdiv), and also converted the result to float to get our desired result.

TIP: Please be careful, while using the division operator (Type casting plays a major role here).