operandos

An operand is a value or quantity on which an operator acts in mathematics and computer science. In an expression, operands are the elements surrounding an operator. The number of operands required by an operator is its arity: unary operators take one operand, binary operators take two, and ternary operators take three.

In mathematics, operands can be numbers, variables, or more complex expressions. For example, in 3 × x + 2, the operands of × are 3 and x, while the operands of + are (3 × x) and 2. Operator precedence and associativity determine the order in which operands are combined to produce a result.

In programming languages, operands appear in expressions and can be literals (constants), variables, or memory references. Some languages also use immediate operands that embed values directly in the instruction or expression. For instance, in the expression y = a + 5, the value 5 is an immediate operand, and a is an operand whose value may come from a variable or memory.

In computer architecture and assembly language, an instruction encodes an opcode and one or more operands. Operands may specify registers, memory addresses, or immediate values. Terms such as source operands and destination operands describe where data are read from and where results are written. Some instruction set architectures use two-operand, three-operand, or other formats, affecting how results are computed and stored.

Overall, operands are fundamental to evaluating expressions, generating code, and encoding machine instructions, reflecting the values that operators manipulate in different contexts.