Why are Postfix ++/-- categorized as primary Operators in C#?

Question

Currently I'm teaching a class of C++ programmers the basics of the C# language. As we discussed the topic operators I used C# standard categories of primary, unary etc. operators.

One of the attendees felt puzzled, because in the C# standard the "postfix ++/--" have been put in the category of primary operators rather than the "prefix ++/--". Her rationale behind this confusion was, that she would rather implement the C++ operator "postfix ++/--" in terms of the operator "prefix ++/--". In other words she would rather count the operator "prefix ++/--" as a primary operator. - I understand her point, but I can't give to her a rationale behind that. OK the operators "postfix ++/--" have a higher precedence than "prefix ++/--", but is this the only rationale behind that?

The spec mentioned it in section "14.2.1 Operator precedence and associativity".

So my very neutral question: Why are Postfix ++/-- categorized as primary Operators in C#? Is there a deeper truth in it?

Answer 1

Since the ECMA standard itself does not define what a 'Primary' operator is, other than order of precedence (i.e. coming before 'Unary') there can be no other significance. The choice of words was probably bad.

Take into account that in many C-link languages, postfix operators tend to create a temporary variable where the expression's intermediate result is stored (see: "Prefer prefix operators over postfix" at Semicolon). Thus, they are fundamentally different from the prefix version.

Nonetheless, quickly checking how Mono and Visual Studio compile for-loops using the postfix and prefix forms, I saw that the IL code produced is identical. Only if you use the postfix/prefix expression's value does it translate to different IL (only affecting where the 'dup' instruction in placed), at least with those implementations mentioned.