I don't think this could possibly be a valid AST for '*lwr++ = x' because the increment is not an operation on the dereferenced value, its an operation on the pointer. So in this case I don't see how it could help but be transformed into a form similar to the "beginner friendly" case.
Or perhaps I am wrong and it would generate an AST like you describe and rely on later passes to actually create a proper dependency graph. My mental model of how these kinds of postfix operators work always assumed it must very early on turn it into two separate statements. Thank you for the suggestions.
Does anyone know exactly what is going on here to cause this difference? I am extremely puzzled that the "beginner friendly" code is not at some point in the compilation pipeline in EXACTLY the same representation as the non-"beginner friendly" code. I would imagine they'd be in the same form very early on, perhaps even at the point of generating an initial syntax tree. And once they take on the same form in the compilation pipeline, the resulting compiler output should be identical. So what is really going on here?
I don't think this could possibly be a valid AST for '*lwr++ = x' because the increment is not an operation on the dereferenced value, its an operation on the pointer. So in this case I don't see how it could help but be transformed into a form similar to the "beginner friendly" case.
Or perhaps I am wrong and it would generate an AST like you describe and rely on later passes to actually create a proper dependency graph. My mental model of how these kinds of postfix operators work always assumed it must very early on turn it into two separate statements. Thank you for the suggestions.