Operator precedence and expression disambiguation

For guidance on declaring classes, structs, members, and interfaces, see Classes, structs, and interfaces.

Operators (precedence summary)

Lowest → highest (all left-associative unless noted):

1. Assignment: = += -= *= /= %= &= |=
2. Null-coalescing: ??
3. Logical OR: ||
4. Logical AND: &&
5. Bitwise OR: |
6. Bitwise AND: &
7. Equality: == !=
8. Relational: < > <= >=
9. Type tests: is as (binds after relational)
10. Range: .. (boundaries optionally prefixed with ^)
11. Additive: + -
12. Multiplicative: * / %
13. Cast: (T)expr
14. Unary (prefix): + - ! fixed stackalloc typeof
15. Postfix trailers: call (), member ., index [], nullable suppression !, propagation ?

🧭 Disambiguation:

• (<expr>) is a parenthesized expression unless a comma appears (including trailing), in which case it’s a tuple.
• < starts type arguments only in a type context; elsewhere it’s the less-than operator.
• The LHS of assignment must be either an assignable expression (identifier, member access, element access, etc.) or a pattern such as a positional deconstruction.
• ^ index expressions are parsed as an adjacent prefix form (^expr); whitespace between ^ and the operand is not allowed.
• Prefix unary +/- are also adjacent forms (+3, -2); whitespace between the operator and operand is not allowed.