What’s an Assign Statement?

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An assignment statement is a computer language construct that binds a particular value to a computer variable. It is a ubiquitous construct in both programming and scripting languages, which allows data to be temporarily saved within a program for future use. This is an important part of computer programming because if the data can’t be saved temporarily in some form, it would be impossible for a program to do anything useful.

Any type of value can be associated with a variable using an assignment statement, be it a complex object or a simple type such as an integer or character string. The types of values ​​that can be mapped depend on the computer language being used, as some languages ​​contain types that others lack. Regardless of the assigned data value, an assignment statement always works the same way, associating data with a specific variable in machine code. Exactly how this happens may depend on the computer language used, but programmers are never required to handle this process in source code.

Most assignment statements are written with the simple variable = value syntax. This is the most common syntax for assignments, although some languages ​​allow for different syntaxes. For example, in the Postscript language, a value is assigned to a variable using the syntax /variable value def. There are a few other languages ​​that have alternative syntaxes as well, but assigning values ​​to variables using an equals sign is nearly universal.

Writing an assignment statement does not always guarantee that a value will be correctly associated with a variable. There are some computer languages ​​where programmers can use specific keywords to prevent a variable from being reassigned once it has been bound to a value. The usage and names of these keywords differ between languages, although they serve the same function. Sometimes, errors in memory can also cause assignment statements to fail. These don’t often happen if a program is written carefully, but they are still possible if the program unexpectedly runs out of memory or encounters another serious problem.

In some computer languages, an equal sign can be used for other things instead of an assignment statement. The most common alternative use of an equal sign is to redefine its action, which could potentially create drastic differences in the mechanics of a normal assignment statement. It is possible to redefine other symbols to restore the capabilities of the assignment statement, but this is often a very complex undertaking. These reassignments are rarely needed in programming and should usually be avoided unless absolutely necessary.

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