C# 0 The Complete Reference

bool

 variable 

someCondition

 is initialized to 

false

. Next, examine each 

if

 statement. As the comments indicate, in the first 

if

 statement, 

i

 is incremented despite the 

fact that 

someCondition

 is false. When the 

&

 is used, as it is in the first 

if

statement, the 

expression on the right side of the 

&

 is evaluated no matter what value the expression on 

the left has. However, in the second 

if

 statement, the short-circuit operator is used. In this 

case, the variable 

i

 is not incremented because the left operand, 

someCondition

, is false, 

which causes the expression on the right to be skipped. The lesson here is that if your code 

expects the right-hand operand of an AND or OR operation to be evaluated, then you must 

use C#’s non-short-circuit forms for these operations.

One other point: The short-circuit AND is also known as the 

conditional AND,

 and the 

short-circuit OR is also called the 

conditional OR.