from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
associativity
<programming> The property of an {operator} that says whether
a sequence of three or more expressions combined by the
operator will be evaluated from left to right (left
associative) or right to left (right associative). For
example, in {Perl}, the {lazy and} operator && is left
associative so in the expression:
$i >= 0 && $x[$i] >= 0 && $y[$x[$i]] == 0
the left-most && is evaluated first, whereas = is right
associative, so in
$a = $b = 42
the right-most assignment is performed first.
(2007-06-16)