Unary Negative (-)

Reverses the sign of its operand, after interpreting the operand as a number.

Details

The Unary Negative operator (-) reverses the sign of a numerically interpreted operand.

Examples

For example:

 SET x = -60
 WRITE " x: ", x,! // -60
 WRITE "-x: ",-x,! // 60

If its operand has a string value, the Unary Negative operator interprets it as a numeric value before reversing its sign. This numeric interpretation is exactly the same as that performed by the Unary Positive operator. For example:

 SET x = -23
 WRITE -"32 dollars and 64 cents" // -32

ObjectScript gives the Unary Negative operator precedence over the two-operand arithmetic operators. ObjectScript first scans a numeric expression and performs any Unary Negative operations. Then, ObjectScript evaluates the expression and produces a result.

In the following example, ObjectScript scans the string and encounters the numeric value of 2 and stops there. It then applies the Unary Negative operator to the value and uses the Concatenate operator (_) to concatenate the value "Rats" from the second string to the numeric value.

 WRITE -"2Cats"_"Rats" // -2Rats

To return the absolute value of a numeric expression, use the $ZABS function.

Addition (+)

Unary Positive (+)