Why doesn't the shorthand arithmetic operator ++ after the variable name return 2 in the following statement?

Question

I have a very simple arithmetic operator but am at my wits end why it doesn\'t return 2. The code below returns 1. I thought that x++ equates to x = x + 1;

C

Answer 1

I think of x++ and ++x (informally) as this:

x++:

function post_increment(x) {
  return x; // Pretend this return statement doesn't exit the function
  x = x + 1;
}

++x:

function pre_increment(x) {
  x = x + 1;
  return x;
}

The two operations do the same thing, but they return different values:

var x = 1;
var y = 1;

x++; // This returned 1
++y; // This returned 2

console.log(x == y); // true because both were incremented in the end