In a situation where operators have the same priority, what determines the order of execution?

In situations where operators have the same priority, the order of execution is determined by operator association. Operator association specifies how operators of the same precedence level are grouped in relation to the operands. This can influence how an expression is evaluated when multiple operators are involved.

For example, in the case of the arithmetic operators, addition and subtraction share the same level of precedence and are evaluated from left to right due to their left-to-right association. This means if you have an expression like 5 - 3 + 1, it will be evaluated as (5 - 3) + 1, resulting in 3, rather than doing it in another order which might yield a different result.

Understanding operator association is critical in programming because it affects the outcome of expressions, clearly demonstrating how the evaluation process is structured based on the rules governing operator relationships.