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Assignment Operators In C++

In C++, the assignment operator forms the backbone of many algorithms and computational processes by performing a simple operation like assigning a value to a variable. It is denoted by equal sign ( = ) and provides one of the most basic operations in any programming language that is used to assign some value to the variables in C++ or in other words, it is used to store some kind of information.

The right-hand side value will be assigned to the variable on the left-hand side. The variable and the value should be of the same data type.

The value can be a literal or another variable of the same data type.

Compound Assignment Operators

In C++, the assignment operator can be combined into a single operator with some other operators to perform a combination of two operations in one single statement. These operators are called Compound Assignment Operators. There are 10 compound assignment operators in C++:

Addition Assignment Operator ( += )
Subtraction Assignment Operator ( -= )
Multiplication Assignment Operator ( *= )
Division Assignment Operator ( /= )
Modulus Assignment Operator ( %= )
Bitwise AND Assignment Operator ( &= )
Bitwise OR Assignment Operator ( |= )
Bitwise XOR Assignment Operator ( ^= )
Left Shift Assignment Operator ( <<= )
Right Shift Assignment Operator ( >>= )

Lets see each of them in detail.

1. Addition Assignment Operator (+=)

In C++, the addition assignment operator (+=) combines the addition operation with the variable assignment allowing you to increment the value of variable by a specified expression in a concise and efficient way.

This above expression is equivalent to the expression:

2. Subtraction Assignment Operator (-=)

The subtraction assignment operator (-=) in C++ enables you to update the value of the variable by subtracting another value from it. This operator is especially useful when you need to perform subtraction and store the result back in the same variable.

3. Multiplication Assignment Operator (*=)

In C++, the multiplication assignment operator (*=) is used to update the value of the variable by multiplying it with another value.

4. Division Assignment Operator (/=)

The division assignment operator divides the variable on the left by the value on the right and assigns the result to the variable on the left.

5. Modulus Assignment Operator (%=)

The modulus assignment operator calculates the remainder when the variable on the left is divided by the value or variable on the right and assigns the result to the variable on the left.

6. Bitwise AND Assignment Operator (&=)

This operator performs a bitwise AND between the variable on the left and the value on the right and assigns the result to the variable on the left.

7. Bitwise OR Assignment Operator (|=)

The bitwise OR assignment operator performs a bitwise OR between the variable on the left and the value or variable on the right and assigns the result to the variable on the left.

8. Bitwise XOR Assignment Operator (^=)

The bitwise XOR assignment operator performs a bitwise XOR between the variable on the left and the value or variable on the right and assigns the result to the variable on the left.

9. Left Shift Assignment Operator (<<=)

The left shift assignment operator shifts the bits of the variable on the left to left by the number of positions specified on the right and assigns the result to the variable on the left.

10. Right Shift Assignment Operator (>>=)

The right shift assignment operator shifts the bits of the variable on the left to the right by a number of positions specified on the right and assigns the result to the variable on the left.

Also, it is important to note that all of the above operators can be overloaded for custom operations with user-defined data types to perform the operations we want.

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cppreference.com

Assignment operators.

Assignment operators modify the value of the object.

[ edit ] Definitions

Copy assignment replaces the contents of the object a with a copy of the contents of b ( b is not modified). For class types, this is performed in a special member function, described in copy assignment operator .

For non-class types, copy and move assignment are indistinguishable and are referred to as direct assignment .

Compound assignment replace the contents of the object a with the result of a binary operation between the previous value of a and the value of b .

[ edit ] Assignment operator syntax

The assignment expressions have the form

↑ target-expr must have higher precedence than an assignment expression.
↑ new-value cannot be a comma expression, because its precedence is lower.

[ edit ] Built-in simple assignment operator

For the built-in simple assignment, the object referred to by target-expr is modified by replacing its value with the result of new-value . target-expr must be a modifiable lvalue.

The result of a built-in simple assignment is an lvalue of the type of target-expr , referring to target-expr . If target-expr is a bit-field , the result is also a bit-field.

[ edit ] Assignment from an expression

If new-value is an expression, it is implicitly converted to the cv-unqualified type of target-expr . When target-expr is a bit-field that cannot represent the value of the expression, the resulting value of the bit-field is implementation-defined.

If target-expr and new-value identify overlapping objects, the behavior is undefined (unless the overlap is exact and the type is the same).

In overload resolution against user-defined operators , for every type T , the following function signatures participate in overload resolution:

For every enumeration or pointer to member type T , optionally volatile-qualified, the following function signature participates in overload resolution:

For every pair A1 and A2 , where A1 is an arithmetic type (optionally volatile-qualified) and A2 is a promoted arithmetic type, the following function signature participates in overload resolution:

[ edit ] Built-in compound assignment operator

The behavior of every built-in compound-assignment expression target-expr op = new-value is exactly the same as the behavior of the expression target-expr = target-expr op new-value , except that target-expr is evaluated only once.

The requirements on target-expr and new-value of built-in simple assignment operators also apply. Furthermore:

For + = and - = , the type of target-expr must be an arithmetic type or a pointer to a (possibly cv-qualified) completely-defined object type .
For all other compound assignment operators, the type of target-expr must be an arithmetic type.

In overload resolution against user-defined operators , for every pair A1 and A2 , where A1 is an arithmetic type (optionally volatile-qualified) and A2 is a promoted arithmetic type, the following function signatures participate in overload resolution:

For every pair I1 and I2 , where I1 is an integral type (optionally volatile-qualified) and I2 is a promoted integral type, the following function signatures participate in overload resolution:

For every optionally cv-qualified object type T , the following function signatures participate in overload resolution: