C Assignment Operators

Summary: in this tutorial, you’ll learn about the C assignment operators and how to use them effectively.

Introduction to the C assignment operators

An assignment operator assigns the vale of the right-hand operand to the left-hand operand. The following example uses the assignment operator (=) to assign 1 to the counter variable:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    int counter;

    // assign 1 to counter
    counter = 1;

    printf("%d\n", counter); // 1

    return 0;
}
Code language: C++ (cpp)

After the assignmment, the counter variable holds the number 1.

The following example adds 1 to the counter and assign the result to the counter:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    int counter;

    // assign 1 to counter
    counter = 1;

    // add one to the counter
    counter = counter + 1;

    printf("%d\n", counter);

    return 0;
}
Code language: C++ (cpp)

The = assignment operator is called a simple assignment operator. It assigns the value of the left operand to the right operand.

Besides the simple assignment operator, C supports compound assignment operators. A compound assignment operator performs the operation specified by the additional operator and then assigns the result to the left operand.

The following example uses a compound-assignment operator (+=):

int x = 5;
x += 10;
Code language: C++ (cpp)

The expression:

x += 10
Code language: C++ (cpp)

is equivalent to the following expression:

x = x + 10;
Code language: C++ (cpp)

The following table illustrates the compound-assignment operators in C:

Summary

• A simple assignment operator assigns the value of the left operand to the right operand.
• A compound assignment operator performs the operation specified by the additional operator and then assigns the result to the left operand.