Assignment Operators

What is an Assignment Operator?

An assignment operator is one or two symbols that are used to assign a value to a variable.

See this page for an overview of other types of operators.

The most common assignment operators are:

• = (Assign)
• += (Add and assign)
• -= (Subtract and assign)
• *= (Multiply and assign)
• /= (Divide and assign)

In the example below, we use the = operator to assign the value 10 to the variable x:

x = 10

const x = 10;

int x = 10;

int x = 10;

The most common assignment operator is the = operator.

Other assignment operators, like +=, -=, *=, and /=, are just short ways of writing the assignment statements.

So for example, x += 10 is just a shorter way of writing x = x + 10.

Try the simulation below to see the result of different assignment operators:

result = 4
result = a
 

result = 4
result += a
 

result = 4
result -= a
 

result = 4
result *= a
 

result = 4
result /= a