Is there any operator in c which is both unary and binary?

Question

Is there any operator in c which is both unary and binary ? This question was asked in one of the interview.

Answer 1

The asterisk (*) can be used for dereferencing (unary) or multiplication (binary).

The ampersand (&) can be used for referencing (unary) or bitwise AND (binary).

The plus/minus signs (+/-) can be used for identity/negation (unary) or addition/subtraction (binary).

But, as others pointed out, those are symbols shared by different operators. Each of those operators have only one n-arity.

Answer 2

No, there isn't. Every operator is either unary, binary, or ternary.

Some unary and binary operators happen to use the same symbol:

• * for dereference and multiplication
• - for negation and subtraction
• + for identity and addition
• & for address-of and bitwise "and"

But unary and binary * are still distinct operators that happen to be spelled the same way.