Operator precedence is a rule that specifies a priority or an order in which operators in an expression are resolved. Based on precedence order or priority, grouping of terms in an expression are determined that decides the way in which expression gets evaluated.

Operators having higher precedence are always evaluated first, before the operators having lower precedence.

When two operators are having same precedence, they are evaluated as per rule of associativity.

All the binary operators are evaluated from left to right, except assignment operator as it is evaluated from right to left.

Below is list of operators with their precedence and associativity from high to low:

What is Operator Precedence?

Java operator precedence can be defined as an order in which operators in an expression get evaluated. For example, 1+2*3, would not give 9, first multiplication would take place as it got higher precedence than addition, 2*3 = 6, and adding 1 will give 7.

What is Associativity?

When two or more operators in an expression having same precedence, then a rule called associativity is followed for deciding the order of evaluating an operator in the expression. It can be right to left or left to right.

For example, 2-1+2, as we can see the expression having operators, – and + have same precedence, here associativity rule will apply, for additive operators, associativity works from left to right, meaning the expression get evaluated from left to right, so, ‘-’ will be evaluated first, 2-1, would give 1 and afterwards addition would happen , 1+2 would give 3.

Which java operator has the highest precedence?
Postfix operator has the highest precedence in Java.