Assignment Operators

Description
Syntax
Operation

Remarks
Example
Related Items
Version History & Bug list

Assigns the value of an expression to the a property of an Object. In Basic syntax, the optional keyword Let can precedes the Assignment Statement.

Syntax:

The following shows the format of the Assignment Statement syntax.

Visual Basic & BASIC	C & Java
[Let] <id> = <expression>	<id> = <expression>;

The following table lists the elements of the Assignment Statement syntax.

Element Description

<id> An Identifier that specifies which Variable or Object and property to be assigned a value.

<expression> Value assigned to the Variable or Object's property specified in <id>

Operation:

When an Assignment Statement is encountered during the program's execution, the value of the Object Property specified by the <id> element is assigned the value specified by the <expression> elements.

With some objects, such as serial ports or LCD Displays, it is useful to assign multiple values at once as a string of characters. This can be done by assigning a string value. I.E. A.Vstring = "Hello World". When an Assignment Statement like this is encountered during the program's execution, the value of the Object Property specified by the <id> element is assigned the values of each character in the string sequentially. See Chapter 13 of the Programmers guide for more detail.

Note: Assigning an expression of one numeric data type to a variable of a different numeric data type coerces the value of the expression into the data type of the resulting variable. I.E. If a Byte value of 3 was assigned to a Bit variable, the resulting Bit variable value would be 1 because it only has 1-bit to store its value in.

Remarks:

In the Basic syntax, the optional Let keyword is most often omitted.

The value specified by the <expression> element can be assigned to the Object's property specified by <id> only if they are of the same type.

Example:

The following example shows an Assignment Statement that sets the value of A to 5.
In the Basic syntax, the Let keyword is optional and both examples function identically.

Visual Basic & BASIC	C & Java
A = 5	A = 5;
Let A = 5	A = 5;

The following example shows an Assignment Statement that sets the value of A to the ASCII value of "T", then sets the value of A to the ASCII value of "e", then sets the value of A to the ASCII value of "s", then sets the value of A to the ASCII value of "t".

Visual Basic & BASIC C & Java

A = "Test"
A = "Test";