Issues with commutative property of && operator - c++

Question

The code below that I have been having strange issues with is meant to trim off the unused portion of an integer array, and then convert it into a string.
Ex:
_ABC__DE______ would become _ABC__DE.
The problems show up when the input is filled with the default character. ("_" in the example).
sLength is the length of the integer array chars
The problematic code:
int inputLength = sLength - 1;
while (chars[inputLength] == defaultChar && inputLength >= 0) {
inputLength--;
}
inputLength++;
Serial.println("input length: " + String(inputLength));
// (in)sanity check
Serial.println(inputLength);
Serial.println(String(inputLength));
Serial.println(inputLength <= 0);
Serial.println(0 <= 0);
Serial.println(inputLength == 0);
Serial.println(0 == 0);
if (inputLength <= 0) {
//reset cursor position
Serial.println("index set to 0");
index = 0;
} else {
output = "";
for (int i = 0; i < inputLength; i++) {
char c = charSet[chars[i]];
if (c == '_') {
c = ' ';
}
output += c;
}
done = true;
}
The output when given an array filled with defaultChar:
input length: 0
0
0
0
1
0
1
If I'm interpreting correctly, the output means that 0 > 0 and 0 =/= 0 on even lines, but 0 <= 0 and 0 = 0 on odd lines.
The workaround I've come up with is replacing
while (chars[inputLength] == defaultChar && inputLength >= 0) {
inputLength--;
}
with one of the following
while (inputLength >= 0 && chars[inputLength] == defaultChar) {
inputLength--;
}
.
while (chars[inputLength] == defaultChar) {
inputLength--;
if (inputLength < 0) {
break;
}
}
which both result in an output of:
input length: 0
0
0
1
1
1
1
index set to 0
Why does this change the result?
As far as I knew until now, the && operator was commutative.
Is there something that I am missing that makes
chars[inputLength] == defaultChar && inputLength >= 0
not equal to
inputLength >= 0 && chars[inputLength] == defaultChar?
If It's relevant, this is being run on an 328P Arduino Nano with the old bootloader using IDE 1.8.8

Answer 1

&& is not commutative. It evaluates the left operand first and then stops if the left operand evaluated to 0.
Your original code fails because at some point it evaluates chars[-1] (which causes undefined behaviour if chars is an array). The alternative version does not have that problem because it performs the >= 0 test before using inputLength as an array index.

Answer 2

&& is commutative in the sense that the result of a && b is same as the result of b && a. But the built-in operator && has a short-circuiting behavior. This means that if the result of a && b can be decided by evaluating the first operand alone, the second one is not evaluated.
So when the first operand is chars[inputLength] == defaultChar and inputLength is -1, you enter the territory of undefined behavior which means the behavior of the program is unpredictable. But with the workarounds, you avoid undefined behavior because of the inputLength >= 0 and inputLength < 0 checks and therefore the code works as intended.
As #PeteBecker notes: a() && b() is not commutative if either a() or b() has side effects.