Operator precedence

Consider the following example:

let q : Float = 1 + 2 - 3 * 4 / 5;

We used 4 common arithmetic operations in one line. The result is a value of type Float and will be named q.

If we would perform the operations from left to right, we would do the following:

• We add 1 to 2 giving us 3
• We then subtract 3 from 3 giving us 0
• We multiply 0 with 4 giving us 0
• We divide 0 by 5 giving us 0

But if we run this code in Motoko, the value of q will be 0.6! The reason for this is that the operations are not performed from left to right. Multiplication and division are performed first, followed by addition and subtraction.

Multiplication and division have a higher precedence than addition and subtraction. Every operator has a certain 'priority' compared to other operators. To see all the precedence rules of which operators are applied before others, checkout the official docs.

To ensure an operation happens first before any other, we can enclose the values and the operator inside parenthesis.

let q : Float = ((1 + 2) - 3) * 4 / 5;

The value of q is now 0.