C Assignment Operators

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 isn't 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
| =	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