C Assignment Operators

 

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An assignment operation assigns the value of the right-hand operand to the storage location named by the left-hand operand. Therefore, the left-hand operand of an assignment operation must be a modifiable l-value. After the assignment, an assignment expression has the value of the left operand but is not an l-value.

Syntax

assignment-expression:
conditional-expression

unary-expression assignment-operator assignment-expression

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

The assignment operators in C can both transform and assign values in a single operation. C provides the following assignment operators:

Operator Operation Performed
= Simple assignment
*= Multiplication assignment
/= Division assignment
%= Remainder assignment
+= Addition assignment
–= Subtraction assignment
<<= Left-shift assignment
>>= Right-shift assignment
&= Bitwise-AND assignment
^= Bitwise-exclusive-OR assignment
&#124;= Bitwise-inclusive-OR assignment

In assignment, the type of the right-hand value is converted to the type of the left-hand value, and the value is stored in the left operand after the assignment has taken place. The left operand must not be an array, a function, or a constant. The specific conversion path, which depends on the two types, is outlined in detail in Type Conversions.

See Also

Assignment Operators