Java 6 Illuminated: An Active Learning Approach, 2nd Edition

2.4 Expressions and Arithmetic Operators 63

2.4 Expressions and Arithmetic Operators

2.4.1 The Assignment Operator and Expressions

In the previous section, we mentioned using the assignment operator to

assign initial values to variables and constants. Now let’s look at the assign-

ment operator in more detail.

The syntax for the assignment operator is:

target = expression;

An expression consists of operators and operands that evaluate to a single

value. The value of the expression is then assigned to target, which must be

a variable or constant having a data type compatible with the value of the

expression.

If target is a variable, the value of the expression ...