How does 100% - 40 wοrk in Java?

Question

System.out.println(100% - 40);

Please explain the steps the compiler takes to resolve this.

Like I understand % is an operator which takes two operands to work but how is it accepting another operator like "-" minus in this case?

Answer 1

The formatting here is important to read it properly.

System.out.println(100 % -40);

or

System.out.println(100 % (-40));

Then, it becomes clear that there are two operators: the remainder operator % and the unary minus operator -.

Furthermore, the operator precedence table explains why this terribly unusual expression works even without round brackets.

┌────────────────┬───────────────────────────────┐
│   Operators    │          Precedence ↓         │
├────────────────┼───────────────────────────────┤
│ unary          │ ++expr --expr +expr -expr ~ ! │
│ multiplicative │ * / %                         │
└────────────────┴───────────────────────────────┘