Introduction
In every textbook on C/C++, you'll find an operator precedence and associativity table such as the following:

http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/operator_precedence
One of the questions on StackOverflow asked something like this:
What order do the following functions execute:
f1() * f2() + f3();
f1() + f2() * f3();
Referring to the previous chart I confidently replied that functions have left-to-right associativity so in the previous statements the are evaluated like this in both cases:
f1() -> f2() -> f3()
After the functions are evaluated you finish the evaluation like this:
(a1 * a2) + a3
a1 + (a2 * a3)
To my surprise, many people told me I was flat out wrong. Determined to prove them wrong, I decided to turn to the ANSI C11 standard. I was once again surprised to find out that very little is mentioned on operator precedence and associativity.
Questions
- If my belief that functions are always evaluated from left-to-right is wrong, what does the table referring to function precedence and associativity really mean?
- Who defines operator precedence and associativity if it's not ANSI? If it is ANSI who makes the definition, why is little mentioned about operator precedence and associativity? Is operator precedence and associativity inferred from the ANSI C standard or is it defined in Mathematics?