To override the normal order of evaluation in an expression, use parentheses. Subexpressions in parentheses are evaluated before the other parts of the expression, from left to right.

The following table summarizes the order of operator precedence. The operands in the table are binary except where noted. Operators on the same line have the same precedence. In order of highest-to-lowest, the precedence of LotusScript operators is:

Type of Operator	Operator	Operation
Arithmetic	^	Exponentiation
	-	Unary negation (unary minus)
	*, /	Multiplication, floating-point division
	\	Integer division
	Mod	Modulo division (remainder)
	-, +	Subtraction, addition
Concatenation	&	String concatenation
Relational (Comparison)	=, <>, ><, <, <=, =<, >, >=, =>, Like	Numeric and string comparison Equal to, not equal to, not equal to, less than, less than or equal to, less than or equal to, greater than, greater than or equal to, greater than or equal to, Contains (substring matching)
Object reference comparison (Same precedence as Relational)	Is, IsA	Tests object type, refers to the same object
Logical	Not	Logical negation or one's complement
	And	Boolean or bitwise And
	Or	Boolean or bitwise Or
	Xor	Boolean or bitwise exclusive Or
	Eqv	Boolean or bitwise logical equivalence
	Imp	Boolean or bitwise logical implication
Assignment	=	Assignment

This example shows the order of precedence for Arithmetic operators.

Print 6 + 4 / 2                    ' Prints 8
Print (6 + 4) / 2                  ' Prints 5

Print -2 ^ 2                       ' Prints -4
Print (-2) ^ 2                     ' Prints 4

This example shows the order of precedence for Comparison operators:

Print 5 < 3                        ' Prints False
Print 5 > 3                        ' Prints True

Print "Alphabet" = "Alpha" & "bet" ' Prints True

Print 4 And 10 - 2 * 3 / 2
' Output: 4 because 2 * 3 = 6
'         6 / 2 = 3
'         10 - 3 = 7 (binary 111)
'         4 (binary 100) And 7 (binary 111) = 4 (binary 100).

You can alter the default order in which operations are performed by enclosing the expressions you want evaluated first in parentheses.

For example:

anInt% = 5
anotherInt% = 10
aThirdInt% = 7
print anInt% - (anotherInt% + aThirdInt%)
' Output: -12

or, alternatively:

theResult% = -1 Or -1 Imp 0
Print theResult%
' Output: False
' because -1 Or -1 = True, and True Imp 0 is False.
theResult% = -1 Or (-1 Imp 0)
Print theResult%
' Output: True
' because -1 Imp 0 is False, and -1 Or False is True.

A function is evaluated before any of the operators in an expression.

For example:

Print -1 > 0
' Output: False
Print Abs(-1) > 0
' Output: True

See Also

Expressions and Operators
Overview of expressions and operators
LotusScript operators
Table of numeric operators

Glossary