Can you have a triple minus signs in C programming? What does it mean? [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Why doesn’t a+++++b work in C?

I got this from page 113 on the "An Embedded Software Primer" by David Simon.

I saw this statement below:

iHoursTemp = iHoursTemp + iZoneNew ---iZoneOld; 

Can you really have three minus signs in this line? What does a triple minus sign mean?

I believe it is a C programming statement.

Answer 1

It is equivalent to:

iHoursTemp = iHoursTemp + (iZoneNew--) - iZoneOld; 

This is in accordance with the maximal-munch principle

Answer 2

The correct answer is (as Rob said) the following:

iHoursTemp = iHoursTemp + (iZoneNew--) - iZoneOld; 

The reason it is that way and not

iHoursTemp = iHoursTemp + iZoneNew - (--iZoneOld); 

is a convention known as maximum munch strategy, which says that if there is more than one possibility for the next token, use (bite) the one that has the most characters. The possibilities in this case are - and --, -- is obviously longer.