what is assignment operator

Python's Assignment Operator: Write Robust Assignments

Table of Contents

The Assignment Statement Syntax

The assignment operator, assignments and variables, other assignment syntax, initializing and updating variables, making multiple variables refer to the same object, updating lists through indices and slices, adding and updating dictionary keys, doing parallel assignments, unpacking iterables, providing default argument values, augmented mathematical assignment operators, augmented assignments for concatenation and repetition, augmented bitwise assignment operators, annotated assignment statements, assignment expressions with the walrus operator, managed attribute assignments, define or call a function, work with classes, import modules and objects, use a decorator, access the control variable in a for loop or a comprehension, use the as keyword, access the _ special variable in an interactive session, built-in objects, named constants.

Python’s assignment operators allow you to define assignment statements . This type of statement lets you create, initialize, and update variables throughout your code. Variables are a fundamental cornerstone in every piece of code, and assignment statements give you complete control over variable creation and mutation.

Learning about the Python assignment operator and its use for writing assignment statements will arm you with powerful tools for writing better and more robust Python code.

In this tutorial, you’ll:

• Use Python’s assignment operator to write assignment statements
• Take advantage of augmented assignments in Python
• Explore assignment variants, like assignment expressions and managed attributes
• Become aware of illegal and dangerous assignments in Python

You’ll dive deep into Python’s assignment statements. To get the most out of this tutorial, you should be comfortable with several basic topics, including variables , built-in data types , comprehensions , functions , and Python keywords . Before diving into some of the later sections, you should also be familiar with intermediate topics, such as object-oriented programming , constants , imports , type hints , properties , descriptors , and decorators .

Free Source Code: Click here to download the free assignment operator source code that you’ll use to write assignment statements that allow you to create, initialize, and update variables in your code.

Assignment Statements and the Assignment Operator

One of the most powerful programming language features is the ability to create, access, and mutate variables . In Python, a variable is a name that refers to a concrete value or object, allowing you to reuse that value or object throughout your code.

To create a new variable or to update the value of an existing one in Python, you’ll use an assignment statement . This statement has the following three components:

• A left operand, which must be a variable
• The assignment operator ( = )
• A right operand, which can be a concrete value , an object , or an expression

Here’s how an assignment statement will generally look in Python:

Here, variable represents a generic Python variable, while expression represents any Python object that you can provide as a concrete value—also known as a literal —or an expression that evaluates to a value.

To execute an assignment statement like the above, Python runs the following steps:

• Evaluate the right-hand expression to produce a concrete value or object . This value will live at a specific memory address in your computer.
• Store the object’s memory address in the left-hand variable . This step creates a new variable if the current one doesn’t already exist or updates the value of an existing variable.

The second step shows that variables work differently in Python than in other programming languages. In Python, variables aren’t containers for objects. Python variables point to a value or object through its memory address. They store memory addresses rather than objects.

This behavior difference directly impacts how data moves around in Python, which is always by reference . In most cases, this difference is irrelevant in your day-to-day coding, but it’s still good to know.

The central component of an assignment statement is the assignment operator . This operator is represented by the = symbol, which separates two operands:

• A value or an expression that evaluates to a concrete value

Operators are special symbols that perform mathematical , logical , and bitwise operations in a programming language. The objects (or object) on which an operator operates are called operands .

Unary operators, like the not Boolean operator, operate on a single object or operand, while binary operators act on two. That means the assignment operator is a binary operator.

Note: Like C , Python uses == for equality comparisons and = for assignments. Unlike C, Python doesn’t allow you to accidentally use the assignment operator ( = ) in an equality comparison.

Equality is a symmetrical relationship, and assignment is not. For example, the expression a == 42 is equivalent to 42 == a . In contrast, the statement a = 42 is correct and legal, while 42 = a isn’t allowed. You’ll learn more about illegal assignments later on.

The right-hand operand in an assignment statement can be any Python object, such as a number , list , string , dictionary , or even a user-defined object. It can also be an expression. In the end, expressions always evaluate to concrete objects, which is their return value.

Here are a few examples of assignments in Python:

The first two sample assignments in this code snippet use concrete values, also known as literals , to create and initialize number and greeting . The third example assigns the result of a math expression to the total variable, while the last example uses a Boolean expression.

Note: You can use the built-in id() function to inspect the memory address stored in a given variable.

Here’s a short example of how this function works:

The number in your output represents the memory address stored in number . Through this address, Python can access the content of number , which is the integer 42 in this example.

If you run this code on your computer, then you’ll get a different memory address because this value varies from execution to execution and computer to computer.

Unlike expressions, assignment statements don’t have a return value because their purpose is to make the association between the variable and its value. That’s why the Python interpreter doesn’t issue any output in the above examples.

Now that you know the basics of how to write an assignment statement, it’s time to tackle why you would want to use one.

The assignment statement is the explicit way for you to associate a name with an object in Python. You can use this statement for two main purposes:

• Creating and initializing new variables
• Updating the values of existing variables

When you use a variable name as the left operand in an assignment statement for the first time, you’re creating a new variable. At the same time, you’re initializing the variable to point to the value of the right operand.

On the other hand, when you use an existing variable in a new assignment, you’re updating or mutating the variable’s value. Strictly speaking, every new assignment will make the variable refer to a new value and stop referring to the old one. Python will garbage-collect all the values that are no longer referenced by any existing variable.

Assignment statements not only assign a value to a variable but also determine the data type of the variable at hand. This additional behavior is another important detail to consider in this kind of statement.

Because Python is a dynamically typed language, successive assignments to a given variable can change the variable’s data type. Changing the data type of a variable during a program’s execution is considered bad practice and highly discouraged. It can lead to subtle bugs that can be difficult to track down.

Unlike in math equations, in Python assignments, the left operand must be a variable rather than an expression or a value. For example, the following construct is illegal, and Python flags it as invalid syntax:

In this example, you have expressions on both sides of the = sign, and this isn’t allowed in Python code. The error message suggests that you may be confusing the equality operator with the assignment one, but that’s not the case. You’re really running an invalid assignment.

To correct this construct and convert it into a valid assignment, you’ll have to do something like the following:

In this code snippet, you first import the sqrt() function from the math module. Then you isolate the hypotenuse variable in the original equation by using the sqrt() function. Now your code works correctly.

Now you know what kind of syntax is invalid. But don’t get the idea that assignment statements are rigid and inflexible. In fact, they offer lots of room for customization, as you’ll learn next.

Python’s assignment statements are pretty flexible and versatile. You can write them in several ways, depending on your specific needs and preferences. Here’s a quick summary of the main ways to write assignments in Python:

Up to this point, you’ve mostly learned about the base assignment syntax in the above code snippet. In the following sections, you’ll learn about multiple, parallel, and augmented assignments. You’ll also learn about assignments with iterable unpacking.

Read on to see the assignment statements in action!

Assignment Statements in Action

You’ll find and use assignment statements everywhere in your Python code. They’re a fundamental part of the language, providing an explicit way to create, initialize, and mutate variables.

You can use assignment statements with plain names, like number or counter . You can also use assignments in more complicated scenarios, such as with:

• Qualified attribute names , like user.name
• Indices and slices of mutable sequences, like a_list[i] and a_list[i:j]
• Dictionary keys , like a_dict[key]

This list isn’t exhaustive. However, it gives you some idea of how flexible these statements are. You can even assign multiple values to an equal number of variables in a single line, commonly known as parallel assignment . Additionally, you can simultaneously assign the values in an iterable to a comma-separated group of variables in what’s known as an iterable unpacking operation.

In the following sections, you’ll dive deeper into all these topics and a few other exciting things that you can do with assignment statements in Python.

The most elementary use case of an assignment statement is to create a new variable and initialize it using a particular value or expression:

All these statements create new variables, assigning them initial values or expressions. For an initial value, you should always use the most sensible and least surprising value that you can think of. For example, initializing a counter to something different from 0 may be confusing and unexpected because counters almost always start having counted no objects.

Updating a variable’s current value or state is another common use case of assignment statements. In Python, assigning a new value to an existing variable doesn’t modify the variable’s current value. Instead, it causes the variable to refer to a different value. The previous value will be garbage-collected if no other variable refers to it.

Consider the following examples:

These examples run two consecutive assignments on the same variable. The first one assigns the string "Hello, World!" to a new variable named greeting .

The second assignment updates the value of greeting by reassigning it the "Hi, Pythonistas!" string. In this example, the original value of greeting —the "Hello, World!" string— is lost and garbage-collected. From this point on, you can’t access the old "Hello, World!" string.

Even though running multiple assignments on the same variable during a program’s execution is common practice, you should use this feature with caution. Changing the value of a variable can make your code difficult to read, understand, and debug. To comprehend the code fully, you’ll have to remember all the places where the variable was changed and the sequential order of those changes.

Because assignments also define the data type of their target variables, it’s also possible for your code to accidentally change the type of a given variable at runtime. A change like this can lead to breaking errors, like AttributeError exceptions. Remember that strings don’t have the same methods and attributes as lists or dictionaries, for example.

In Python, you can make several variables reference the same object in a multiple-assignment line. This can be useful when you want to initialize several similar variables using the same initial value:

In this example, you chain two assignment operators in a single line. This way, your two variables refer to the same initial value of 0 . Note how both variables hold the same memory address, so they point to the same instance of 0 .

When it comes to integer variables, Python exhibits a curious behavior. It provides a numeric interval where multiple assignments behave the same as independent assignments. Consider the following examples:

To create n and m , you use independent assignments. Therefore, they should point to different instances of the number 42 . However, both variables hold the same object, which you confirm by comparing their corresponding memory addresses.

Now check what happens when you use a greater initial value:

Now n and m hold different memory addresses, which means they point to different instances of the integer number 300 . In contrast, when you use multiple assignments, both variables refer to the same object. This tiny difference can save you small bits of memory if you frequently initialize integer variables in your code.

The implicit behavior of making independent assignments point to the same integer number is actually an optimization called interning . It consists of globally caching the most commonly used integer values in day-to-day programming.

Under the hood, Python defines a numeric interval in which interning takes place. That’s the interning interval for integer numbers. You can determine this interval using a small script like the following:

This script helps you determine the interning interval by comparing integer numbers from -10 to 500 . If you run the script from your command line, then you’ll get an output like the following:

This output means that if you use a single number between -5 and 256 to initialize several variables in independent statements, then all these variables will point to the same object, which will help you save small bits of memory in your code.

In contrast, if you use a number that falls outside of the interning interval, then your variables will point to different objects instead. Each of these objects will occupy a different memory spot.

You can use the assignment operator to mutate the value stored at a given index in a Python list. The operator also works with list slices . The syntax to write these types of assignment statements is the following:

In the first construct, expression can return any Python object, including another list. In the second construct, expression must return a series of values as a list, tuple, or any other sequence. You’ll get a TypeError if expression returns a single value.

Note: When creating slice objects, you can use up to three arguments. These arguments are start , stop , and step . They define the number that starts the slice, the number at which the slicing must stop retrieving values, and the step between values.

Here’s an example of updating an individual value in a list:

In this example, you update the value at index 2 using an assignment statement. The original number at that index was 7 , and after the assignment, the number is 3 .

Note: Using indices and the assignment operator to update a value in a tuple or a character in a string isn’t possible because tuples and strings are immutable data types in Python.

Their immutability means that you can’t change their items in place :

You can’t use the assignment operator to change individual items in tuples or strings. These data types are immutable and don’t support item assignments.

It’s important to note that you can’t add new values to a list by using indices that don’t exist in the target list:

In this example, you try to add a new value to the end of numbers by using an index that doesn’t exist. This assignment isn’t allowed because there’s no way to guarantee that new indices will be consecutive. If you ever want to add a single value to the end of a list, then use the .append() method.

If you want to update several consecutive values in a list, then you can use slicing and an assignment statement:

In the first example, you update the letters between indices 1 and 3 without including the letter at 3 . The second example updates the letters from index 3 until the end of the list. Note that this slicing appends a new value to the list because the target slice is shorter than the assigned values.

Also note that the new values were provided through a tuple, which means that this type of assignment allows you to use other types of sequences to update your target list.

The third example updates a single value using a slice where both indices are equal. In this example, the assignment inserts a new item into your target list.

In the final example, you use a step of 2 to replace alternating letters with their lowercase counterparts. This slicing starts at index 1 and runs through the whole list, stepping by two items each time.

Updating the value of an existing key or adding new key-value pairs to a dictionary is another common use case of assignment statements. To do these operations, you can use the following syntax:

The first construct helps you update the current value of an existing key, while the second construct allows you to add a new key-value pair to the dictionary.

For example, to update an existing key, you can do something like this:

In this example, you update the current inventory of oranges in your store using an assignment. The left operand is the existing dictionary key, and the right operand is the desired new value.

While you can’t add new values to a list by assignment, dictionaries do allow you to add new key-value pairs using the assignment operator. In the example below, you add a lemon key to inventory :

In this example, you successfully add a new key-value pair to your inventory with 100 units. This addition is possible because dictionaries don’t have consecutive indices but unique keys, which are safe to add by assignment.

The assignment statement does more than assign the result of a single expression to a single variable. It can also cope nicely with assigning multiple values to multiple variables simultaneously in what’s known as a parallel assignment .

Here’s the general syntax for parallel assignments in Python:

Note that the left side of the statement can be either a tuple or a list of variables. Remember that to create a tuple, you just need a series of comma-separated elements. In this case, these elements must be variables.

The right side of the statement must be a sequence or iterable of values or expressions. In any case, the number of elements in the right operand must match the number of variables on the left. Otherwise, you’ll get a ValueError exception.

In the following example, you compute the two solutions of a quadratic equation using a parallel assignment:

In this example, you first import sqrt() from the math module. Then you initialize the equation’s coefficients in a parallel assignment.

The equation’s solution is computed in another parallel assignment. The left operand contains a tuple of two variables, x1 and x2 . The right operand consists of a tuple of expressions that compute the solutions for the equation. Note how each result is assigned to each variable by position.

A classical use case of parallel assignment is to swap values between variables:

The highlighted line does the magic and swaps the values of previous_value and next_value at the same time. Note that in a programming language that doesn’t support this kind of assignment, you’d have to use a temporary variable to produce the same effect:

In this example, instead of using parallel assignment to swap values between variables, you use a new variable to temporarily store the value of previous_value to avoid losing its reference.

For a concrete example of when you’d need to swap values between variables, say you’re learning how to implement the bubble sort algorithm , and you come up with the following function:

In the highlighted line, you use a parallel assignment to swap values in place if the current value is less than the next value in the input list. To dive deeper into the bubble sort algorithm and into sorting algorithms in general, check out Sorting Algorithms in Python .

You can use assignment statements for iterable unpacking in Python. Unpacking an iterable means assigning its values to a series of variables one by one. The iterable must be the right operand in the assignment, while the variables must be the left operand.

Like in parallel assignments, the variables must come as a tuple or list. The number of variables must match the number of values in the iterable. Alternatively, you can use the unpacking operator ( * ) to grab several values in a variable if the number of variables doesn’t match the iterable length.

Here’s the general syntax for iterable unpacking in Python:

Iterable unpacking is a powerful feature that you can use all around your code. It can help you write more readable and concise code. For example, you may find yourself doing something like this:

Whenever you do something like this in your code, go ahead and replace it with a more readable iterable unpacking using a single and elegant assignment, like in the following code snippet:

The numbers list on the right side contains four values. The assignment operator unpacks these values into the four variables on the left side of the statement. The values in numbers get assigned to variables in the same order that they appear in the iterable. The assignment is done by position.

Note: Because Python sets are also iterables, you can use them in an iterable unpacking operation. However, it won’t be clear which value goes to which variable because sets are unordered data structures.

The above example shows the most common form of iterable unpacking in Python. The main condition for the example to work is that the number of variables matches the number of values in the iterable.

What if you don’t know the iterable length upfront? Will the unpacking work? It’ll work if you use the * operator to pack several values into one of your target variables.

For example, say that you want to unpack the first and second values in numbers into two different variables. Additionally, you would like to pack the rest of the values in a single variable conveniently called rest . In this case, you can use the unpacking operator like in the following code:

In this example, first and second hold the first and second values in numbers , respectively. These values are assigned by position. The * operator packs all the remaining values in the input iterable into rest .

The unpacking operator ( * ) can appear at any position in your series of target variables. However, you can only use one instance of the operator:

The iterable unpacking operator works in any position in your list of variables. Note that you can only use one unpacking operator per assignment. Using more than one unpacking operator isn’t allowed and raises a SyntaxError .

Dropping away unwanted values from the iterable is a common use case for the iterable unpacking operator. Consider the following example:

In Python, if you want to signal that a variable won’t be used, then you use an underscore ( _ ) as the variable’s name. In this example, useful holds the only value that you need to use from the input iterable. The _ variable is a placeholder that guarantees that the unpacking works correctly. You won’t use the values that end up in this disposable variable.

Note: In the example above, if your target iterable is a sequence data type, such as a list or tuple, then it’s best to access its last item directly.

To do this, you can use the -1 index:

Using -1 gives you access to the last item of any sequence data type. In contrast, if you’re dealing with iterators , then you won’t be able to use indices. That’s when the *_ syntax comes to your rescue.

The pattern used in the above example comes in handy when you have a function that returns multiple values, and you only need a few of these values in your code. The os.walk() function may provide a good example of this situation.

This function allows you to iterate over the content of a directory recursively. The function returns a generator object that yields three-item tuples. Each tuple contains the following items:

• The path to the current directory as a string
• The names of all the immediate subdirectories as a list of strings
• The names of all the files in the current directory as a list of strings

Now say that you want to iterate over your home directory and list only the files. You can do something like this:

This code will issue a long output depending on the current content of your home directory. Note that you need to provide a string with the path to your user folder for the example to work. The _ placeholder variable will hold the unwanted data.

In contrast, the filenames variable will hold the list of files in the current directory, which is the data that you need. The code will print the list of filenames. Go ahead and give it a try!

The assignment operator also comes in handy when you need to provide default argument values in your functions and methods. Default argument values allow you to define functions that take arguments with sensible defaults. These defaults allow you to call the function with specific values or to simply rely on the defaults.

As an example, consider the following function:

This function takes one argument, called name . This argument has a sensible default value that’ll be used when you call the function without arguments. To provide this sensible default value, you use an assignment.

Note: According to PEP 8 , the style guide for Python code, you shouldn’t use spaces around the assignment operator when providing default argument values in function definitions.

Here’s how the function works:

If you don’t provide a name during the call to greet() , then the function uses the default value provided in the definition. If you provide a name, then the function uses it instead of the default one.

Up to this point, you’ve learned a lot about the Python assignment operator and how to use it for writing different types of assignment statements. In the following sections, you’ll dive into a great feature of assignment statements in Python. You’ll learn about augmented assignments .

Augmented Assignment Operators in Python

Python supports what are known as augmented assignments . An augmented assignment combines the assignment operator with another operator to make the statement more concise. Most Python math and bitwise operators have an augmented assignment variation that looks something like this:

Note that $ isn’t a valid Python operator. In this example, it’s a placeholder for a generic operator. This statement works as follows:

• Evaluate expression to produce a value.
• Run the operation defined by the operator that prefixes the = sign, using the previous value of variable and the return value of expression as operands.
• Assign the resulting value back to variable .

In practice, an augmented assignment like the above is equivalent to the following statement:

As you can conclude, augmented assignments are syntactic sugar . They provide a shorthand notation for a specific and popular kind of assignment.

For example, say that you need to define a counter variable to count some stuff in your code. You can use the += operator to increment counter by 1 using the following code:

In this example, the += operator, known as augmented addition , adds 1 to the previous value in counter each time you run the statement counter += 1 .

It’s important to note that unlike regular assignments, augmented assignments don’t create new variables. They only allow you to update existing variables. If you use an augmented assignment with an undefined variable, then you get a NameError :

Python evaluates the right side of the statement before assigning the resulting value back to the target variable. In this specific example, when Python tries to compute x + 1 , it finds that x isn’t defined.

Great! You now know that an augmented assignment consists of combining the assignment operator with another operator, like a math or bitwise operator. To continue this discussion, you’ll learn which math operators have an augmented variation in Python.

An equation like x = x + b doesn’t make sense in math. But in programming, a statement like x = x + b is perfectly valid and can be extremely useful. It adds b to x and reassigns the result back to x .

As you already learned, Python provides an operator to shorten x = x + b . Yes, the += operator allows you to write x += b instead. Python also offers augmented assignment operators for most math operators. Here’s a summary:

The Example column provides generic examples of how to use the operators in actual code. Note that x must be previously defined for the operators to work correctly. On the other hand, y can be either a concrete value or an expression that returns a value.

Note: The matrix multiplication operator ( @ ) doesn’t support augmented assignments yet.

Consider the following example of matrix multiplication using NumPy arrays:

Note that the exception traceback indicates that the operation isn’t supported yet.

To illustrate how augmented assignment operators work, say that you need to create a function that takes an iterable of numeric values and returns their sum. You can write this function like in the code below:

In this function, you first initialize total to 0 . In each iteration, the loop adds a new number to total using the augmented addition operator ( += ). When the loop terminates, total holds the sum of all the input numbers. Variables like total are known as accumulators . The += operator is typically used to update accumulators.

Note: Computing the sum of a series of numeric values is a common operation in programming. Python provides the built-in sum() function for this specific computation.

Another interesting example of using an augmented assignment is when you need to implement a countdown while loop to reverse an iterable. In this case, you can use the -= operator:

In this example, custom_reversed() is a generator function because it uses yield . Calling the function creates an iterator that yields items from the input iterable in reverse order. To decrement the control variable, index , you use an augmented subtraction statement that subtracts 1 from the variable in every iteration.

Note: Similar to summing the values in an iterable, reversing an iterable is also a common requirement. Python provides the built-in reversed() function for this specific computation, so you don’t have to implement your own. The above example only intends to show the -= operator in action.

Finally, counters are a special type of accumulators that allow you to count objects. Here’s an example of a letter counter:

To create this counter, you use a Python dictionary. The keys store the letters. The values store the counts. Again, to increment the counter, you use an augmented addition.

Counters are so common in programming that Python provides a tool specially designed to facilitate the task of counting. Check out Python’s Counter: The Pythonic Way to Count Objects for a complete guide on how to use this tool.

The += and *= augmented assignment operators also work with sequences , such as lists, tuples, and strings. The += operator performs augmented concatenations , while the *= operator performs augmented repetition .

These operators behave differently with mutable and immutable data types:

Note that the augmented concatenation operator operates on two sequences, while the augmented repetition operator works on a sequence and an integer number.

Consider the following examples and pay attention to the result of calling the id() function:

Mutable sequences like lists support the += augmented assignment operator through the .__iadd__() method, which performs an in-place addition. This method mutates the underlying list, appending new values to its end.

Note: If the left operand is mutable, then x += y may not be completely equivalent to x = x + y . For example, if you do list_1 = list_1 + list_2 instead of list_1 += list_2 above, then you’ll create a new list instead of mutating the existing one. This may be important if other variables refer to the same list.

Immutable sequences, such as tuples and strings, don’t provide an .__iadd__() method. Therefore, augmented concatenations fall back to the .__add__() method, which doesn’t modify the sequence in place but returns a new sequence.

There’s another difference between mutable and immutable sequences when you use them in an augmented concatenation. Consider the following examples:

With mutable sequences, the data to be concatenated can come as a list, tuple, string, or any other iterable. In contrast, with immutable sequences, the data can only come as objects of the same type. You can concatenate tuples to tuples and strings to strings, for example.

Again, the augmented repetition operator works with a sequence on the left side of the operator and an integer on the right side. This integer value represents the number of repetitions to get in the resulting sequence:

When the *= operator operates on a mutable sequence, it falls back to the .__imul__() method, which performs the operation in place, modifying the underlying sequence. In contrast, if *= operates on an immutable sequence, then .__mul__() is called, returning a new sequence of the same type.

Note: Values of n less than 0 are treated as 0 , which returns an empty sequence of the same data type as the target sequence on the left side of the *= operand.

Note that a_list[0] is a_list[3] returns True . This is because the *= operator doesn’t make a copy of the repeated data. It only reflects the data. This behavior can be a source of issues when you use the operator with mutable values.

For example, say that you want to create a list of lists to represent a matrix, and you need to initialize the list with n empty lists, like in the following code:

In this example, you use the *= operator to populate matrix with three empty lists. Now check out what happens when you try to populate the first sublist in matrix :

The appended values are reflected in the three sublists. This happens because the *= operator doesn’t make copies of the data that you want to repeat. It only reflects the data. Therefore, every sublist in matrix points to the same object and memory address.

If you ever need to initialize a list with a bunch of empty sublists, then use a list comprehension :

This time, when you populate the first sublist of matrix , your changes aren’t propagated to the other sublists. This is because all the sublists are different objects that live in different memory addresses.

Bitwise operators also have their augmented versions. The logic behind them is similar to that of the math operators. The following table summarizes the augmented bitwise operators that Python provides:

The augmented bitwise assignment operators perform the intended operation by taking the current value of the left operand as a starting point for the computation. Consider the following example, which uses the & and &= operators:

Programmers who work with high-level languages like Python rarely use bitwise operations in day-to-day coding. However, these types of operations can be useful in some situations.

For example, say that you’re implementing a Unix-style permission system for your users to access a given resource. In this case, you can use the characters "r" for reading, "w" for writing, and "x" for execution permissions, respectively. However, using bit-based permissions could be more memory efficient:

You can assign permissions to your users with the OR bitwise operator or the augmented OR bitwise operator. Finally, you can use the bitwise AND operator to check if a user has a certain permission, as you did in the final two examples.

You’ve learned a lot about augmented assignment operators and statements in this and the previous sections. These operators apply to math, concatenation, repetition, and bitwise operations. Now you’re ready to look at other assignment variants that you can use in your code or find in other developers’ code.

Other Assignment Variants

So far, you’ve learned that Python’s assignment statements and the assignment operator are present in many different scenarios and use cases. Those use cases include variable creation and initialization, parallel assignments, iterable unpacking, augmented assignments, and more.

In the following sections, you’ll learn about a few variants of assignment statements that can be useful in your future coding. You can also find these assignment variants in other developers’ code. So, you should be aware of them and know how they work in practice.

In short, you’ll learn about:

• Annotated assignment statements with type hints
• Assignment expressions with the walrus operator
• Managed attribute assignments with properties and descriptors
• Implicit assignments in Python

These topics will take you through several interesting and useful examples that showcase the power of Python’s assignment statements.

PEP 526 introduced a dedicated syntax for variable annotation back in Python 3.6 . The syntax consists of the variable name followed by a colon ( : ) and the variable type:

Even though these statements declare three variables with their corresponding data types, the variables aren’t actually created or initialized. So, for example, you can’t use any of these variables in an augmented assignment statement:

If you try to use one of the previously declared variables in an augmented assignment, then you get a NameError because the annotation syntax doesn’t define the variable. To actually define it, you need to use an assignment.

The good news is that you can use the variable annotation syntax in an assignment statement with the = operator:

The first statement in this example is what you can call an annotated assignment statement in Python. You may ask yourself why you should use type annotations in this type of assignment if everybody can see that counter holds an integer number. You’re right. In this example, the variable type is unambiguous.

However, imagine what would happen if you found a variable initialization like the following:

What would be the data type of each user in users ? If the initialization of users is far away from the definition of the User class, then there’s no quick way to answer this question. To clarify this ambiguity, you can provide the appropriate type hint for users :

Now you’re clearly communicating that users will hold a list of User instances. Using type hints in assignment statements that initialize variables to empty collection data types—such as lists, tuples, or dictionaries—allows you to provide more context about how your code works. This practice will make your code more explicit and less error-prone.

Up to this point, you’ve learned that regular assignment statements with the = operator don’t have a return value. They just create or update variables. Therefore, you can’t use a regular assignment to assign a value to a variable within the context of an expression.

Python 3.8 changed this by introducing a new type of assignment statement through PEP 572 . This new statement is known as an assignment expression or named expression .

Note: Expressions are a special type of statement in Python. Their distinguishing characteristic is that expressions always have a return value, which isn’t the case with all types of statements.

Unlike regular assignments, assignment expressions have a return value, which is why they’re called expressions in the first place. This return value is automatically assigned to a variable. To write an assignment expression, you must use the walrus operator ( := ), which was named for its resemblance to the eyes and tusks of a walrus lying on its side.

The general syntax of an assignment statement is as follows:

This expression looks like a regular assignment. However, instead of using the assignment operator ( = ), it uses the walrus operator ( := ). For the expression to work correctly, the enclosing parentheses are required in most use cases. However, there are certain situations in which these parentheses are superfluous. Either way, they won’t hurt you.

Assignment expressions come in handy when you want to reuse the result of an expression or part of an expression without using a dedicated assignment to grab this value beforehand.

Note: Assignment expressions with the walrus operator have several practical use cases. They also have a few restrictions. For example, they’re illegal in certain contexts, such as lambda functions, parallel assignments, and augmented assignments.

For a deep dive into this special type of assignment, check out The Walrus Operator: Python’s Assignment Expressions .

A particularly handy use case for assignment expressions is when you need to grab the result of an expression used in the context of a conditional statement. For example, say that you need to write a function to compute the mean of a sample of numeric values. Without the walrus operator, you could do something like this:

In this example, the sample size ( n ) is a value that you need to reuse in two different computations. First, you need to check whether the sample has data points or not. Then you need to use the sample size to compute the mean. To be able to reuse n , you wrote a dedicated assignment statement at the beginning of your function to grab the sample size.

You can avoid this extra step by combining it with the first use of the target value, len(sample) , using an assignment expression like the following:

The assignment expression introduced in the conditional computes the sample size and assigns it to n . This way, you guarantee that you have a reference to the sample size to use in further computations.

Because the assignment expression returns the sample size anyway, the conditional can check whether that size equals 0 or not and then take a certain course of action depending on the result of this check. The return statement computes the sample’s mean and sends the result back to the function caller.

Python provides a few tools that allow you to fine-tune the operations behind the assignment of attributes. The attributes that run implicit operations on assignments are commonly referred to as managed attributes .

Properties are the most commonly used tool for providing managed attributes in your classes. However, you can also use descriptors and, in some cases, the .__setitem__() special method.

To understand what fine-tuning the operation behind an assignment means, say that you need a Point class that only allows numeric values for its coordinates, x and y . To write this class, you must set up a validation mechanism to reject non-numeric values. You can use properties to attach the validation functionality on top of x and y .

Here’s how you can write your class:

In Point , you use properties for the .x and .y coordinates. Each property has a getter and a setter method . The getter method returns the attribute at hand. The setter method runs the input validation using a try … except block and the built-in float() function. Then the method assigns the result to the actual attribute.

Here’s how your class works in practice:

When you use a property-based attribute as the left operand in an assignment statement, Python automatically calls the property’s setter method, running any computation from it.

Because both .x and .y are properties, the input validation runs whenever you assign a value to either attribute. In the first example, the input values are valid numbers and the validation passes. In the final example, "one" isn’t a valid numeric value, so the validation fails.

If you look at your Point class, you’ll note that it follows a repetitive pattern, with the getter and setter methods looking quite similar. To avoid this repetition, you can use a descriptor instead of a property.

A descriptor is a class that implements the descriptor protocol , which consists of four special methods :

• .__get__() runs when you access the attribute represented by the descriptor.
• .__set__() runs when you use the attribute in an assignment statement.
• .__delete__() runs when you use the attribute in a del statement.
• .__set_name__() sets the attribute’s name, creating a name-aware attribute.

Here’s how your code may look if you use a descriptor to represent the coordinates of your Point class:

You’ve removed repetitive code by defining Coordinate as a descriptor that manages the input validation in a single place. Go ahead and run the following code to try out the new implementation of Point :

Great! The class works as expected. Thanks to the Coordinate descriptor, you now have a more concise and non-repetitive version of your original code.

Another way to fine-tune the operations behind an assignment statement is to provide a custom implementation of .__setitem__() in your class. You’ll use this method in classes representing mutable data collections, such as custom list-like or dictionary-like classes.

As an example, say that you need to create a dictionary-like class that stores its keys in lowercase letters:

In this example, you create a dictionary-like class by subclassing UserDict from collections . Your class implements a .__setitem__() method, which takes key and value as arguments. The method uses str.lower() to convert key into lowercase letters before storing it in the underlying dictionary.

Python implicitly calls .__setitem__() every time you use a key as the left operand in an assignment statement. This behavior allows you to tweak how you process the assignment of keys in your custom dictionary.

Implicit Assignments in Python

Python implicitly runs assignments in many different contexts. In most cases, these implicit assignments are part of the language syntax. In other cases, they support specific behaviors.

Whenever you complete an action in the following list, Python runs an implicit assignment for you:

• Define or call a function
• Define or instantiate a class
• Use the current instance , self
• Import modules and objects
• Use a decorator
• Use the control variable in a for loop or a comprehension
• Use the as qualifier in with statements , imports, and try … except blocks
• Access the _ special variable in an interactive session

Behind the scenes, Python performs an assignment in every one of the above situations. In the following subsections, you’ll take a tour of all these situations.

When you define a function, the def keyword implicitly assigns a function object to your function’s name. Here’s an example:

From this point on, the name greet refers to a function object that lives at a given memory address in your computer. You can call the function using its name and a pair of parentheses with appropriate arguments. This way, you can reuse greet() wherever you need it.

If you call your greet() function with fellow as an argument, then Python implicitly assigns the input argument value to the name parameter on the function’s definition. The parameter will hold a reference to the input arguments.

When you define a class with the class keyword, you’re assigning a specific name to a class object . You can later use this name to create instances of that class. Consider the following example:

In this example, the name User holds a reference to a class object, which was defined in __main__.User . Like with a function, when you call the class’s constructor with the appropriate arguments to create an instance, Python assigns the arguments to the parameters defined in the class initializer .

Another example of implicit assignments is the current instance of a class, which in Python is called self by convention. This name implicitly gets a reference to the current object whenever you instantiate a class. Thanks to this implicit assignment, you can access .name and .job from within the class without getting a NameError in your code.

Import statements are another variant of implicit assignments in Python. Through an import statement, you assign a name to a module object, class, function, or any other imported object. This name is then created in your current namespace so that you can access it later in your code:

In this example, you import the sys module object from the standard library and assign it to the sys name, which is now available in your namespace, as you can conclude from the second call to the built-in dir() function.

You also run an implicit assignment when you use a decorator in your code. The decorator syntax is just a shortcut for a formal assignment like the following:

Here, you call decorator() with a function object as an argument. This call will typically add functionality on top of the existing function, func() , and return a function object, which is then reassigned to the func name.

The decorator syntax is syntactic sugar for replacing the previous assignment, which you can now write as follows:

Even though this new code looks pretty different from the above assignment, the code implicitly runs the same steps.

Another situation in which Python automatically runs an implicit assignment is when you use a for loop or a comprehension. In both cases, you can have one or more control variables that you then use in the loop or comprehension body:

The memory address of control_variable changes on each iteration of the loop. This is because Python internally reassigns a new value from the loop iterable to the loop control variable on each cycle.

The same behavior appears in comprehensions:

In the end, comprehensions work like for loops but use a more concise syntax. This comprehension creates a new list of strings that mimic the output from the previous example.

The as keyword in with statements, except clauses, and import statements is another example of an implicit assignment in Python. This time, the assignment isn’t completely implicit because the as keyword provides an explicit way to define the target variable.

In a with statement, the target variable that follows the as keyword will hold a reference to the context manager that you’re working with. As an example, say that you have a hello.txt file with the following content:

You want to open this file and print each of its lines on your screen. In this case, you can use the with statement to open the file using the built-in open() function.

In the example below, you accomplish this. You also add some calls to print() that display information about the target variable defined by the as keyword:

This with statement uses the open() function to open hello.txt . The open() function is a context manager that returns a text file object represented by an io.TextIOWrapper instance.

Since you’ve defined a hello target variable with the as keyword, now that variable holds a reference to the file object itself. You confirm this by printing the object and its memory address. Finally, the for loop iterates over the lines and prints this content to the screen.

When it comes to using the as keyword in the context of an except clause, the target variable will contain an exception object if any exception occurs:

In this example, you run a division that raises a ZeroDivisionError . The as keyword assigns the raised exception to error . Note that when you print the exception object, you get only the message because exceptions have a custom .__str__() method that supports this behavior.

There’s a final detail to remember when using the as specifier in a try … except block like the one in the above example. Once you leave the except block, the target variable goes out of scope , and you can’t use it anymore.

Finally, Python’s import statements also support the as keyword. In this context, you can use as to import objects with a different name:

In these examples, you use the as keyword to import the numpy package with the np name and pandas with the name pd . If you call dir() , then you’ll realize that np and pd are now in your namespace. However, the numpy and pandas names are not.

Using the as keyword in your imports comes in handy when you want to use shorter names for your objects or when you need to use different objects that originally had the same name in your code. It’s also useful when you want to make your imported names non-public using a leading underscore, like in import sys as _sys .

The final implicit assignment that you’ll learn about in this tutorial only occurs when you’re using Python in an interactive session. Every time you run a statement that returns a value, the interpreter stores the result in a special variable denoted by a single underscore character ( _ ).

You can access this special variable as you’d access any other variable:

These examples cover several situations in which Python internally uses the _ variable. The first two examples evaluate expressions. Expressions always have a return value, which is automatically assigned to the _ variable every time.

When it comes to function calls, note that if your function returns a fruitful value, then _ will hold it. In contrast, if your function returns None , then the _ variable will remain untouched.

The next example consists of a regular assignment statement. As you already know, regular assignments don’t return any value, so the _ variable isn’t updated after these statements run. Finally, note that accessing a variable in an interactive session returns the value stored in the target variable. This value is then assigned to the _ variable.

Note that since _ is a regular variable, you can use it in other expressions:

In this example, you first create a list of values. Then you call len() to get the number of values in the list. Python automatically stores this value in the _ variable. Finally, you use _ to compute the mean of your list of values.

Now that you’ve learned about some of the implicit assignments that Python runs under the hood, it’s time to dig into a final assignment-related topic. In the following few sections, you’ll learn about some illegal and dangerous assignments that you should be aware of and avoid in your code.

Illegal and Dangerous Assignments in Python

In Python, you’ll find a few situations in which using assignments is either forbidden or dangerous. You must be aware of these special situations and try to avoid them in your code.

In the following sections, you’ll learn when using assignment statements isn’t allowed in Python. You’ll also learn about some situations in which using assignments should be avoided if you want to keep your code consistent and robust.

You can’t use Python keywords as variable names in assignment statements. This kind of assignment is explicitly forbidden. If you try to use a keyword as a variable name in an assignment, then you get a SyntaxError :

Whenever you try to use a keyword as the left operand in an assignment statement, you get a SyntaxError . Keywords are an intrinsic part of the language and can’t be overridden.

If you ever feel the need to name one of your variables using a Python keyword, then you can append an underscore to the name of your variable:

In this example, you’re using the desired name for your variables. Because you added a final underscore to the names, Python doesn’t recognize them as keywords, so it doesn’t raise an error.

Note: Even though adding an underscore at the end of a name is an officially recommended practice , it can be confusing sometimes. Therefore, try to find an alternative name or use a synonym whenever you find yourself using this convention.

For example, you can write something like this:

In this example, using the name booking_class for your variable is way clearer and more descriptive than using class_ .

You’ll also find that you can use only a few keywords as part of the right operand in an assignment statement. Those keywords will generally define simple statements that return a value or object. These include lambda , and , or , not , True , False , None , in , and is . You can also use the for keyword when it’s part of a comprehension and the if keyword when it’s used as part of a ternary operator .

In an assignment, you can never use a compound statement as the right operand. Compound statements are those that require an indented block, such as for and while loops, conditionals, with statements, try … except blocks, and class or function definitions.

Sometimes, you need to name variables, but the desired or ideal name is already taken and used as a built-in name. If this is your case, think harder and find another name. Don’t shadow the built-in.

Shadowing built-in names can cause hard-to-identify problems in your code. A common example of this issue is using list or dict to name user-defined variables. In this case, you override the corresponding built-in names, which won’t work as expected if you use them later in your code.

Consider the following example:

The exception in this example may sound surprising. How come you can’t use list() to build a list from a call to map() that returns a generator of square numbers?

By using the name list to identify your list of numbers, you shadowed the built-in list name. Now that name points to a list object rather than the built-in class. List objects aren’t callable, so your code no longer works.

In Python, you’ll have nothing that warns against using built-in, standard-library, or even relevant third-party names to identify your own variables. Therefore, you should keep an eye out for this practice. It can be a source of hard-to-debug errors.

In programming, a constant refers to a name associated with a value that never changes during a program’s execution. Unlike other programming languages, Python doesn’t have a dedicated syntax for defining constants. This fact implies that Python doesn’t have constants in the strict sense of the word.

Python only has variables. If you need a constant in Python, then you’ll have to define a variable and guarantee that it won’t change during your code’s execution. To do that, you must avoid using that variable as the left operand in an assignment statement.

To tell other Python programmers that a given variable should be treated as a constant, you must write your variable’s name in capital letters with underscores separating the words. This naming convention has been adopted by the Python community and is a recommendation that you’ll find in the Constants section of PEP 8 .

In the following examples, you define some constants in Python:

The problem with these constants is that they’re actually variables. Nothing prevents you from changing their value during your code’s execution. So, at any time, you can do something like the following:

These assignments modify the value of two of your original constants. Python doesn’t complain about these changes, which can cause issues later in your code. As a Python developer, you must guarantee that named constants in your code remain constant.

The only way to do that is never to use named constants in an assignment statement other than the constant definition.

You’ve learned a lot about Python’s assignment operators and how to use them for writing assignment statements . With this type of statement, you can create, initialize, and update variables according to your needs. Now you have the required skills to fully manage the creation and mutation of variables in your Python code.

In this tutorial, you’ve learned how to:

• Write assignment statements using Python’s assignment operators
• Work with augmented assignments in Python
• Explore assignment variants, like assignment expression and managed attributes
• Identify illegal and dangerous assignments in Python

Learning about the Python assignment operator and how to use it in assignment statements is a fundamental skill in Python. It empowers you to write reliable and effective Python code.

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Python's Assignment Operator: Write Robust Assignments (Source Code)

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Assignment (=)

The assignment ( = ) operator is used to assign a value to a variable or property. The assignment expression itself has a value, which is the assigned value. This allows multiple assignments to be chained in order to assign a single value to multiple variables.

A valid assignment target, including an identifier or a property accessor . It can also be a destructuring assignment pattern .

An expression specifying the value to be assigned to x .

Return value

The value of y .

Thrown in strict mode if assigning to an identifier that is not declared in the scope.

Thrown in strict mode if assigning to a property that is not modifiable .

Description

The assignment operator is completely different from the equals ( = ) sign used as syntactic separators in other locations, which include:

• Initializers of var , let , and const declarations
• Default values of destructuring
• Default parameters
• Initializers of class fields

All these places accept an assignment expression on the right-hand side of the = , so if you have multiple equals signs chained together:

This is equivalent to:

Which means y must be a pre-existing variable, and x is a newly declared const variable. y is assigned the value 5 , and x is initialized with the value of the y = 5 expression, which is also 5 . If y is not a pre-existing variable, a global variable y is implicitly created in non-strict mode , or a ReferenceError is thrown in strict mode. To declare two variables within the same declaration, use:

Simple assignment and chaining

Value of assignment expressions.

The assignment expression itself evaluates to the value of the right-hand side, so you can log the value and assign to a variable at the same time.

Unqualified identifier assignment

The global object sits at the top of the scope chain. When attempting to resolve a name to a value, the scope chain is searched. This means that properties on the global object are conveniently visible from every scope, without having to qualify the names with globalThis. or window. or global. .

Because the global object has a String property ( Object.hasOwn(globalThis, "String") ), you can use the following code:

So the global object will ultimately be searched for unqualified identifiers. You don't have to type globalThis.String ; you can just type the unqualified String . To make this feature more conceptually consistent, assignment to unqualified identifiers will assume you want to create a property with that name on the global object (with globalThis. omitted), if there is no variable of the same name declared in the scope chain.

In strict mode , assignment to an unqualified identifier in strict mode will result in a ReferenceError , to avoid the accidental creation of properties on the global object.

Note that the implication of the above is that, contrary to popular misinformation, JavaScript does not have implicit or undeclared variables. It just conflates the global object with the global scope and allows omitting the global object qualifier during property creation.

Assignment with destructuring

The left-hand side of can also be an assignment pattern. This allows assigning to multiple variables at once.

For more information, see Destructuring assignment .

Specifications

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser with JavaScript enabled. Enable JavaScript to view data.

• Assignment operators in the JS guide
• Destructuring assignment

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Assignment Operators in C

In C language, the assignment operator stores a certain value in an already declared variable. A variable in C can be assigned the value in the form of a literal, another variable, or an expression.

The value to be assigned forms the right-hand operand, whereas the variable to be assigned should be the operand to the left of the " = " symbol, which is defined as a simple assignment operator in C.

In addition, C has several augmented assignment operators.

The following table lists the assignment operators supported by the C language −

Simple Assignment Operator (=)

The = operator is one of the most frequently used operators in C. As per the ANSI C standard, all the variables must be declared in the beginning. Variable declaration after the first processing statement is not allowed.

You can declare a variable to be assigned a value later in the code, or you can initialize it at the time of declaration.

You can use a literal, another variable, or an expression in the assignment statement.

Once a variable of a certain type is declared, it cannot be assigned a value of any other type. In such a case the C compiler reports a type mismatch error.

In C, the expressions that refer to a memory location are called "lvalue" expressions. A lvalue may appear as either the left-hand or right-hand side of an assignment.

On the other hand, the term rvalue refers to a data value that is stored at some address in memory. A rvalue is an expression that cannot have a value assigned to it which means an rvalue may appear on the right-hand side but not on the left-hand side of an assignment.

Variables are lvalues and so they may appear on the left-hand side of an assignment. Numeric literals are rvalues and so they may not be assigned and cannot appear on the left-hand side. Take a look at the following valid and invalid statements −

Augmented Assignment Operators

In addition to the = operator, C allows you to combine arithmetic and bitwise operators with the = symbol to form augmented or compound assignment operator. The augmented operators offer a convenient shortcut for combining arithmetic or bitwise operation with assignment.

For example, the expression "a += b" has the same effect of performing "a + b" first and then assigning the result back to the variable "a".

Run the code and check its output −

Similarly, the expression "a <<= b" has the same effect of performing "a << b" first and then assigning the result back to the variable "a".

Here is a C program that demonstrates the use of assignment operators in C −

When you compile and execute the above program, it will produce the following result −

cppreference.com

Assignment operators.

Assignment and compound assignment operators are binary operators that modify the variable to their left using the value to their right.

[ edit ] Simple assignment

The simple assignment operator expressions have the form

Assignment performs implicit conversion from the value of rhs to the type of lhs and then replaces the value in the object designated by lhs with the converted value of rhs .

Assignment also returns the same value as what was stored in lhs (so that expressions such as a = b = c are possible). The value category of the assignment operator is non-lvalue (so that expressions such as ( a = b ) = c are invalid).

rhs and lhs must satisfy one of the following:

• both lhs and rhs have compatible struct or union type, or..
• rhs must be implicitly convertible to lhs , which implies
• both lhs and rhs have arithmetic types , in which case lhs may be volatile -qualified or atomic (since C11)
• both lhs and rhs have pointer to compatible (ignoring qualifiers) types, or one of the pointers is a pointer to void, and the conversion would not add qualifiers to the pointed-to type. lhs may be volatile or restrict (since C99) -qualified or atomic (since C11) .
• lhs is a (possibly qualified or atomic (since C11) ) pointer and rhs is a null pointer constant such as NULL or a nullptr_t value (since C23)

[ edit ] Notes

If rhs and lhs overlap in memory (e.g. they are members of the same union), the behavior is undefined unless the overlap is exact and the types are compatible .

Although arrays are not assignable, an array wrapped in a struct is assignable to another object of the same (or compatible) struct type.

The side effect of updating lhs is sequenced after the value computations, but not the side effects of lhs and rhs themselves and the evaluations of the operands are, as usual, unsequenced relative to each other (so the expressions such as i = ++ i ; are undefined)

Assignment strips extra range and precision from floating-point expressions (see FLT_EVAL_METHOD ).

In C++, assignment operators are lvalue expressions, not so in C.

[ edit ] Compound assignment

The compound assignment operator expressions have the form

The expression lhs @= rhs is exactly the same as lhs = lhs @ ( rhs ) , except that lhs is evaluated only once.

[ edit ] References

• C17 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2018):
• 6.5.16 Assignment operators (p: 72-73)
• C11 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2011):
• 6.5.16 Assignment operators (p: 101-104)
• C99 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1999):
• 6.5.16 Assignment operators (p: 91-93)
• C89/C90 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1990):
• 3.3.16 Assignment operators

[ edit ] See Also

Operator precedence

[ edit ] See also

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Assignment operators

• 8 contributors

expression assignment-operator expression

assignment-operator : one of   =   *=   /=   %=   +=   -=   <<=   >>=   &=   ^=   |=

Assignment operators store a value in the object specified by the left operand. There are two kinds of assignment operations:

simple assignment , in which the value of the second operand is stored in the object specified by the first operand.

compound assignment , in which an arithmetic, shift, or bitwise operation is performed before storing the result.

All assignment operators in the following table except the = operator are compound assignment operators.

Assignment operators table

Operator keywords

Three of the compound assignment operators have keyword equivalents. They are:

C++ specifies these operator keywords as alternative spellings for the compound assignment operators. In C, the alternative spellings are provided as macros in the <iso646.h> header. In C++, the alternative spellings are keywords; use of <iso646.h> or the C++ equivalent <ciso646> is deprecated. In Microsoft C++, the /permissive- or /Za compiler option is required to enable the alternative spelling.

Simple assignment

The simple assignment operator ( = ) causes the value of the second operand to be stored in the object specified by the first operand. If both objects are of arithmetic types, the right operand is converted to the type of the left, before storing the value.

Objects of const and volatile types can be assigned to l-values of types that are only volatile , or that aren't const or volatile .

Assignment to objects of class type ( struct , union , and class types) is performed by a function named operator= . The default behavior of this operator function is to perform a member-wise copy assignment of the object's non-static data members and direct base classes; however, this behavior can be modified using overloaded operators. For more information, see Operator overloading . Class types can also have copy assignment and move assignment operators. For more information, see Copy constructors and copy assignment operators and Move constructors and move assignment operators .

An object of any unambiguously derived class from a given base class can be assigned to an object of the base class. The reverse isn't true because there's an implicit conversion from derived class to base class, but not from base class to derived class. For example:

Assignments to reference types behave as if the assignment were being made to the object to which the reference points.

For class-type objects, assignment is different from initialization. To illustrate how different assignment and initialization can be, consider the code

The preceding code shows an initializer; it calls the constructor for UserType2 that takes an argument of type UserType1 . Given the code

the assignment statement

can have one of the following effects:

Call the function operator= for UserType2 , provided operator= is provided with a UserType1 argument.

Call the explicit conversion function UserType1::operator UserType2 , if such a function exists.

Call a constructor UserType2::UserType2 , provided such a constructor exists, that takes a UserType1 argument and copies the result.

Compound assignment

The compound assignment operators are shown in the Assignment operators table . These operators have the form e1 op = e2 , where e1 is a non- const modifiable l-value and e2 is:

an arithmetic type

a pointer, if op is + or -

a type for which there exists a matching operator *op*= overload for the type of e1

The built-in e1 op = e2 form behaves as e1 = e1 op e2 , but e1 is evaluated only once.

Compound assignment to an enumerated type generates an error message. If the left operand is of a pointer type, the right operand must be of a pointer type, or it must be a constant expression that evaluates to 0. When the left operand is of an integral type, the right operand must not be of a pointer type.

Result of built-in assignment operators

The built-in assignment operators return the value of the object specified by the left operand after the assignment (and the arithmetic/logical operation in the case of compound assignment operators). The resultant type is the type of the left operand. The result of an assignment expression is always an l-value. These operators have right-to-left associativity. The left operand must be a modifiable l-value.

In ANSI C, the result of an assignment expression isn't an l-value. That means the legal C++ expression (a += b) += c isn't allowed in C.

Expressions with binary operators C++ built-in operators, precedence, and associativity C assignment operators

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Assignment operators are used to assign values to variables:

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21.12 — Overloading the assignment operator

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Ocoee Commission denies Forest Lake Golf Club leaseholder assignment

Ocoee leaders voted to deny the assignment of ja hospitality as the new operator of forest lake golf club on the city-owned land..

• By Sam Albuquerque
• | 9:00 a.m. August 30, 2024
• Leave a comment

• West Orange Times & Observer

After initial discussions were held at the Ocoee City Commission meeting Tuesday, Aug. 6, regarding an agreed-upon sale for the right to be the assigned operator and leaseholder of Forest Lake Golf Club — not the sale of the city-owned land the course sits on — between the current owners, Forest Lake Golf Club LLLP and proposed assignees JA Hospitality LLC, the commission voted unanimously at the Tuesday, Aug. 20, meeting to deny the assignment of the proposed leaseholders.

The commission made the decision based on financial records not being submitted to the city for the execution of a proper valuation of the golf club. 

“I’m going to make a motion to deny the request to assign the ground lease amendment from Forest Lake LLLP to JA hospitality, dated June 26, 2024, without prejudice,” City Commissioner Scott Kennedy said. “Due to multiple reasons, including — but not limited to — Forest Lakes’ failure to provide complete financial and other information requested on multiple occasions by the city in order to make a determination.”

The ground lease between the city and Forest Lake Golf Club gives the city the right of first refusal to any sale or transfer of the right to be the leaseholder — meaning Ocoee has the right to match the $7.5 million purchase agreement for that right to lease the land from the city between Forest Lake and JA Hospitality and operate the golf club. 

The lease also gives the city the right to deny any new assignee on the basis of its financial health and adequate background in golf course development and/or management.

According to Logan Opsahl, the attorney representing Forest Lake Golf Club, the lease requires a right-of-first-refusal process before evaluating if an assignee meets the city’s requirements to operate a golf club adequately. Opsahl and his clients came to commission to deal with the right of first refusal — not the approval of the assignee. 

“This ground lease that we’ve been operating under successfully for 33 years provides a 60-day period for a right of first refusal under the same terms and provisions of the agreement being proposed to JA Hospitality, the proposed assignee,” Opsahl said. “That’s what the lease says; it’s very clear. So, we’re not asking that you provide an approval of the assignment (of the lease) to JA Hospitality. That’s not what’s being asked … that comes later.”

Beyond the order of operations of these two rights granted to the city as the entity leasing the land to the golf club, there was also disagreement about the consequence of the city not acting, one way or another, on its right of first refusal by the deadline.

City Attorney Richard Geller said the recommendation — and what the commission ultimately voted to do — of denying the assignment of JA Hospitality stops the clock on the city’s right of first refusal. 

In response to this statement from Geller, Opsahl said the decision “would waive the city’s right of first refusal.”

Kennedy disagreed.

“No, it ends it for this turnaround, which resets the clock (and) lets you all start over,” he said.

Opsahl contested that interpretation:“I disagree with that analysis. Could the city attorney provide on the record its basis for that denial?”

IN OTHER NEWS

• Two proclamations were read at the Ocoee City Commission meeting. Commissioner Rosemary Wilsen read a proclamation declaring Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, as West Orange Healthy Selfie Day in the city of Ocoee, in partnership with Healthy West Orange. The second proclamation was read by Commissioner Richard Firstner, the former Ocoee fire chief, declaring Sept. 11, 2024, as a day of prayer, remembrance and rededication to patriotism in Ocoee.
• TNXL Academy, a youth baseball club that was established more than a decade ago and moved to Ocoee about five years ago, was recognized for winning its third 2024 NAA national championship in five years. TNXL coach Brian Martinez and five of his players were present at the meeting for the honor. 
• An emergency item was added and approved to the agenda during the staff report section of the meeting. The emergency item, which was approved unanimously, was the purchase of water meters, MXU’s and backflows that exceed the original $200,000 purchase order made to Core & Main in November. The new total cost of the increased amount of materials is $286,000.

Sam Albuquerque

A native of João Pessoa, Brazil, Sam Albuquerque moved in 1997 to Central Florida as a kid. After earning a communications degree in 2016 from the University of Central Florida, he started his career covering sports as a producer for a local radio station, ESPN 580 Orlando. He went on to earn a master’s degree in editorial journalism from Northwestern University, before moving to South Carolina to cover local sports for the USA Today Network’s Spartanburg Herald-Journal. When he’s not working, you can find him spending time with his lovely wife, Sarah, newborn son, Noah, and dog named Skulí.

Latest News

• September 1, 2024

PHOTOS: West Orange football handles Wekiva at home, 32-14

• August 31, 2024

Ocoee High announces details for Oct. 19 athletics' fundraiser golf tournament

West Orange football has complete performance in 32-14 win over Wekiva High

The First Academy football snap Edgewater's 28-game win streak in 28-24 comeback win

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How to make compiler use copy instead of move [closed]

I am using msvc compiler with C++ 23

I have a situation like this (class shouldn't be moveable, only copyable):

MyClass m = MyClass{}; //tries to use move

It tries to move the newly constructed class. I realize that this is natural since MyClass{} is an r-value.

Is there anything that I can do to the class to make this possible? Make the compiler understand that I want it to use copy since move is deleted, so that MyClass m = MyClass{}; works?

Error message:

• And if you have an hour, you should watch this presentation: The Nightmare of Initialization in C++ . It'll help you clear up a lot of problems before they happen. –  user4581301 Commented Aug 28 at 19:28
• Try this: a) write Myclass m, n; m=n; to test move=; and write a function that returns a local variable of type MyClass, to test move ctor. –  Topological Sort Commented Aug 28 at 19:41
• 1 @TopologicalSort m = n; will invoke the copy assignment operator, for the move assignment operator you would need m = std::move(n); instead. Also, a function that returns a named local variable may not invoke the copy constructor or the move constructor at all, if "(Named) Return Value Optimization" (aka copy elison ) is used instead. –  Remy Lebeau Commented Aug 28 at 19:42
• Just write MyClass m; or, if you're compulsive, MyClass m{}; . There's no reason to make the construction more complicated. –  Pete Becker Commented Aug 28 at 21:08
• Make that m=n1+n2. –  Topological Sort Commented Aug 29 at 15:29

Are you SURE you are actually compiling with C++23? Modern MSVC supports C++23, but it defaults to C++14. To actually enable C++23, you need to use the /std flag in your configuration.

In C++17 and later, MyClass m = MyClass{}; is optimized to be identical to MyClass m{}; but that is not the case in earlier versions.

Your code compiles fine in msvc v19 using /std:c++latest .

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Copy Constructor vs Assignment Operator in C++

Copy constructor and Assignment operator are similar as they are both used to initialize one object using another object. But, there are some basic differences between them:

Consider the following C++ program. 

Explanation: Here, t2 = t1;  calls the assignment operator , same as t2.operator=(t1); and   Test t3 = t1;  calls the copy constructor , same as Test t3(t1);

Must Read: When is a Copy Constructor Called in C++?

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