It is the intention of the rule that when the increment or decrement operator is used, it should be the only side effect in the statement. The use of increment and decrement operators in combination with other arithmetic operators is not recommended because:

It can significantly impair the readability of the code.
It introduces additional side effects into a statement with the potential for undefined behaviour.

It is safer to use these operations in isolation from any other arithmetic operators.

For example a statement such as the following is not compliant:

u8a = ++u8b + u8c--;    /* Not compliant */

The following sequence is clearer and therefore safer:

++u8b;
u8a = u8b + u8c;
u8c--;

MISRA-C++ Rule 5-2-10 (advisory): The increment (++) and decrement (--) operators should not be mixed with other operators in an expression.

Rationale

The use of increment and decrement operators in combination with other arithmetic operators is not recommended, because:

It can significantly impair the readability of the code.
It introduces additional side effects into a statement, with the potential for undefined behaviour.

It is safer to use these operators in isolation from any other arithmetic operators.

Example

A statement such as the following is non-compliant:

u8a = ++u8b + u8c--; // Non-compliant

The following sequence is clearer and therefore safer:

++u8b;
u8a = u8b + u8c;
u8c--;