Assignment Statements
An assignment statement uses the assignment operator (=
) to assign the result of an expression to a variable. In its simplest form, you code it like this:
variable = expression;
For example:
int a = (b * c) / 4;
A compound assignment operator is an operator that performs a calculation and an assignment at the same time. All Java binary arithmetic operators (that is, the ones that work on two operands) have equivalent compound assignment operators:
Operator |
Description |
|
Addition and assignment |
|
Subtraction and assignment |
|
Multiplication and assignment |
|
Division and assignment |
|
Remainder and assignment |
For example, the statement
a += 10;
is equivalent to
a = a + 10;
An assignment expression has a return value just as any other expression does; the return value is the value that’s assigned to the variable. For example, the return value of the expression a = 5
is 5
. This allows you to create some interesting, but ill-advised, expressions by using assignment expressions in the middle of other expressions. For example:
int a;
int b;
a = (b = 3) * 2; // a is 6, b is 3
Using assignment operators in the middle ...
Get Java For Dummies Quick Reference now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.