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PowerShell – Unary operators

Unary operators work on a single operand. PowerShell provides unary operators and through this article, we are going to discuss them.

The ++ operator – Post & pre-increment operator

The unary operator ‘++’ will increment the value of the operand by 1. It has two forms, post & pre-increment forms. When the unary operator ‘++’ is mentioned in front of the operand, we call it a pre-increment operator.

PS C:\> $var = 1
PS C:\> ++$var
PS C:\> $var
2

When the unary operator ‘++’ is mentioned after the operand, we call it a post-increment operator.

PS C:\> $var = 1
PS C:\> Write-Output ($var++)
1

Have you observed the result? Why $var variable’s value displayed as 1? There is a difference between pre & post increment operators. When we use the pre-increment operator, the value will increment first and then will evaluate the expression; but, in the case of the post-increment operator, the expression will evaluate first, and then the value will increment later. Hence you are seeing the above result.

PS C:\> $var = 1
PS C:\> Write-Output ($var++)
1
PS C:\> Write-Output (++$var)
3

Depending on the need you can use either post or pre-increment operator.

The -- operator – Post & pre-decrement operator

The unary operator ‘–‘ will decrement the value of the operand by 1. The unary operator ‘–‘ has two forms; post & pre-decrement forms.

Similar to unary ‘–‘ operators; when we use the post-decrement unary operator the expression will evaluate first and then will decrement the value of the operand. Whereas with a pre-decrement unary operator the value will decrement first, and the expression will evaluate after that.

Here are the examples to understand how the unary decrement operator works;

PS C:\> $var = 2
PS C:\> echo ($var--)
2
PS C:\> echo (--$var)
0

[..] David

PowerShell – Unary operators

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