Operators

Warning!!!!

Operators are very important. The way the IB wants you to use operators is different than the way you will use them in real life.

Programming basics

An operator is something that takes one or more values (or expressions, in programming jargon) and yields another value (so that the construction itself becomes an expression)

There are many different types of operators, but the ones we primarily concern ourselves with are boldfaced below:

• Operator Precedence
• Arithmetic Operators
• Assignment Operators
• Bitwise Operators
• Comparison Operators
• Error Control Operators
• Execution Operators
• Incrementing/Decrementing Operators
• Logical Operators
• String Operators
• Array Operators
• Type Operators

An example of some arithmetic operators in PHP can be found below

Example	Name	Result
+$a	Identity	Conversion of $a to int or float as appropriate.
-$a	Negation	Opposite of $a.
$a + $b	Addition	Sum of $a and $b.
$a - $b	Subtraction	Difference of $a and $b.
$a * $b	Multiplication	Product of $a and $b.
$a / $b	Division	Quotient of $a and $b.
$a % $b	Modulus	Remainder of $a divided by $b.
$a ** $b	Exponentiation	Result of raising $a to the $b'th power.

A video

This video references the C programming language and scratch, but the ideas about operators are excellent. In the case of conditionals, PHP and C share similar syntax (but not exact).

The way the IB wants you to use operators

Please know all code submitted to the IB (with the exception of object oriented programming) is in pseudocode. The way we write operators in pseudocode is different than the way we might write them in the real world.

Click here to view a file describing approved notation, including pseudocode This is the approved notation sheet from the IB.

Below is a graphic that is taken from the above PDF file to help you understand how the IB wants operators to look.

Standards

• Define the terms: variable, constant, operator, object.
• Define common operators.
• Analyse the use of variables, constants and operators in algorithms.

See Also

• Conditionals in php

anomalous or exceptional conditions requiring special processing – often changing the normal flow of program execution

Give the precise meaning of a word, phrase, concept or physical quantity.

Break down in order to bring out the essential elements or structure. To identify parts and relationships, and to interpret information to reach conclusions.