How do the post increment (i++) and pre increment (++i) operators work in Java?

Does this help?

a = 5;
i=++a + ++a + a++; =>
i=6 + 7 + 7; (a=8)

a = 5;
i=a++ + ++a + ++a; =>
i=5 + 7 + 8; (a=8)

The main point is that ++a increments the value and immediately returns it.

a++ also increments the value (in the background) but returns unchanged value of the variable – what looks like it is executed later.