what does assignment operator mean in c

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Assignment Operators in C

In C language, the assignment operator stores a certain value in an already declared variable. A variable in C can be assigned the value in the form of a literal, another variable, or an expression.

The value to be assigned forms the right-hand operand, whereas the variable to be assigned should be the operand to the left of the " = " symbol, which is defined as a simple assignment operator in C.

In addition, C has several augmented assignment operators.

The following table lists the assignment operators supported by the C language −

Simple Assignment Operator (=)

The = operator is one of the most frequently used operators in C. As per the ANSI C standard, all the variables must be declared in the beginning. Variable declaration after the first processing statement is not allowed.

You can declare a variable to be assigned a value later in the code, or you can initialize it at the time of declaration.

You can use a literal, another variable, or an expression in the assignment statement.

Once a variable of a certain type is declared, it cannot be assigned a value of any other type. In such a case the C compiler reports a type mismatch error.

In C, the expressions that refer to a memory location are called "lvalue" expressions. A lvalue may appear as either the left-hand or right-hand side of an assignment.

On the other hand, the term rvalue refers to a data value that is stored at some address in memory. A rvalue is an expression that cannot have a value assigned to it which means an rvalue may appear on the right-hand side but not on the left-hand side of an assignment.

Variables are lvalues and so they may appear on the left-hand side of an assignment. Numeric literals are rvalues and so they may not be assigned and cannot appear on the left-hand side. Take a look at the following valid and invalid statements −

Augmented Assignment Operators

In addition to the = operator, C allows you to combine arithmetic and bitwise operators with the = symbol to form augmented or compound assignment operator. The augmented operators offer a convenient shortcut for combining arithmetic or bitwise operation with assignment.

For example, the expression "a += b" has the same effect of performing "a + b" first and then assigning the result back to the variable "a".

Run the code and check its output −

Similarly, the expression "a <<= b" has the same effect of performing "a << b" first and then assigning the result back to the variable "a".

Here is a C program that demonstrates the use of assignment operators in C −

When you compile and execute the above program, it will produce the following result −

Home » Learn C Programming from Scratch » C Assignment Operators

C Assignment Operators

Summary : in this tutorial, you’ll learn about the C assignment operators and how to use them effectively.

Introduction to the C assignment operators

An assignment operator assigns the vale of the right-hand operand to the left-hand operand. The following example uses the assignment operator (=) to assign 1 to the counter variable:

After the assignmment, the counter variable holds the number 1.

The following example adds 1 to the counter and assign the result to the counter:

The = assignment operator is called a simple assignment operator. It assigns the value of the left operand to the right operand.

Besides the simple assignment operator, C supports compound assignment operators. A compound assignment operator performs the operation specified by the additional operator and then assigns the result to the left operand.

The following example uses a compound-assignment operator (+=):

The expression:

is equivalent to the following expression:

The following table illustrates the compound-assignment operators in C:

• A simple assignment operator assigns the value of the left operand to the right operand.
• A compound assignment operator performs the operation specified by the additional operator and then assigns the result to the left operand.

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C Assignment Operators

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An assignment operation assigns the value of the right-hand operand to the storage location named by the left-hand operand. Therefore, the left-hand operand of an assignment operation must be a modifiable l-value. After the assignment, an assignment expression has the value of the left operand but isn't an l-value.

assignment-expression :   conditional-expression   unary-expression assignment-operator assignment-expression

assignment-operator : one of   = *= /= %= += -= <<= >>= &= ^= |=

The assignment operators in C can both transform and assign values in a single operation. C provides the following assignment operators:

In assignment, the type of the right-hand value is converted to the type of the left-hand value, and the value is stored in the left operand after the assignment has taken place. The left operand must not be an array, a function, or a constant. The specific conversion path, which depends on the two types, is outlined in detail in Type Conversions .

• Assignment Operators

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Assignment operators.

Assignment and compound assignment operators are binary operators that modify the variable to their left using the value to their right.

[ edit ] Simple assignment

The simple assignment operator expressions have the form

Assignment performs implicit conversion from the value of rhs to the type of lhs and then replaces the value in the object designated by lhs with the converted value of rhs .

Assignment also returns the same value as what was stored in lhs (so that expressions such as a = b = c are possible). The value category of the assignment operator is non-lvalue (so that expressions such as ( a = b ) = c are invalid).

rhs and lhs must satisfy one of the following:

• both lhs and rhs have compatible struct or union type, or..
• rhs must be implicitly convertible to lhs , which implies
• both lhs and rhs have arithmetic types , in which case lhs may be volatile -qualified or atomic (since C11)
• both lhs and rhs have pointer to compatible (ignoring qualifiers) types, or one of the pointers is a pointer to void, and the conversion would not add qualifiers to the pointed-to type. lhs may be volatile or restrict (since C99) -qualified or atomic (since C11) .
• lhs is a (possibly qualified or atomic (since C11) ) pointer and rhs is a null pointer constant such as NULL or a nullptr_t value (since C23)

[ edit ] Notes

If rhs and lhs overlap in memory (e.g. they are members of the same union), the behavior is undefined unless the overlap is exact and the types are compatible .

Although arrays are not assignable, an array wrapped in a struct is assignable to another object of the same (or compatible) struct type.

The side effect of updating lhs is sequenced after the value computations, but not the side effects of lhs and rhs themselves and the evaluations of the operands are, as usual, unsequenced relative to each other (so the expressions such as i = ++ i ; are undefined)

Assignment strips extra range and precision from floating-point expressions (see FLT_EVAL_METHOD ).

In C++, assignment operators are lvalue expressions, not so in C.

[ edit ] Compound assignment

The compound assignment operator expressions have the form

The expression lhs @= rhs is exactly the same as lhs = lhs @ ( rhs ) , except that lhs is evaluated only once.

[ edit ] References

• C17 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2018):
• 6.5.16 Assignment operators (p: 72-73)
• C11 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2011):
• 6.5.16 Assignment operators (p: 101-104)
• C99 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1999):
• 6.5.16 Assignment operators (p: 91-93)
• C89/C90 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1990):
• 3.3.16 Assignment operators

[ edit ] See Also

Operator precedence

[ edit ] See also

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1. Simple Assignment Operator (=)

Example of simple assignment operator.

2. Compound Assignment Operators

Example of Augmented Arithmetic and Assignment Operators

Example of Augmented Bitwise and Assignment Operators

Practice problems on assignment operators in c, 1. what will the value of "x" be after the execution of the following code, 2. after executing the following code, what is the value of the number variable, benefits of using assignment operators, best practices and tips for using the assignment operator, live classes schedule.

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Assignment Operators in C

Assignment Operators in C Example

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Assignment Operators in C

Assignment operators are used to assigning the result of an expression to a variable. Up to now, we have used the shorthand assignment operator “=”, which assigns the result of a right-hand expression to the left-hand variable. For example, in the expression x = y + z, the sum of y and z is assigned to x.

Another form of assignment operator is variable operator_symbol= expression ; which is equivalent to variable = variable operator_symbol expression;

We have the following different types of assignment and assignment short-hand operators.

Expected Output:

C Programming Tutorial

• Assignment Operator in C

Last updated on July 27, 2020

We have already used the assignment operator ( = ) several times before. Let's discuss it here in detail. The assignment operator ( = ) is used to assign a value to the variable. Its general format is as follows:

The operand on the left side of the assignment operator must be a variable and operand on the right-hand side must be a constant, variable or expression. Here are some examples:

The precedence of the assignment operator is lower than all the operators we have discussed so far and it associates from right to left.

We can also assign the same value to multiple variables at once.

here x , y and z are initialized to 100 .

Since the associativity of the assignment operator ( = ) is from right to left. The above expression is equivalent to the following:

Note that expressions like:

are called assignment expression. If we put a semicolon( ; ) at the end of the expression like this:

then the assignment expression becomes assignment statement.

Compound Assignment Operator #

Assignment operations that use the old value of a variable to compute its new value are called Compound Assignment.

Consider the following two statements:

Here the second statement adds 5 to the existing value of x . This value is then assigned back to x . Now, the new value of x is 105 .

To handle such operations more succinctly, C provides a special operator called Compound Assignment operator.

The general format of compound assignment operator is as follows:

where op can be any of the arithmetic operators ( + , - , * , / , % ). The above statement is functionally equivalent to the following:

Note : In addition to arithmetic operators, op can also be >> (right shift), << (left shift), | (Bitwise OR), & (Bitwise AND), ^ (Bitwise XOR). We haven't discussed these operators yet.

After evaluating the expression, the op operator is then applied to the result of the expression and the current value of the variable (on the RHS). The result of this operation is then assigned back to the variable (on the LHS). Let's take some examples: The statement:

is equivalent to x = x + 5; or x = x + (5); .

Similarly, the statement:

is equivalent to x = x * 2; or x = x * (2); .

Since, expression on the right side of op operator is evaluated first, the statement:

is equivalent to x = x * (y + 1) .

The precedence of compound assignment operators are same and they associate from right to left (see the precedence table ).

The following table lists some Compound assignment operators:

The following program demonstrates Compound assignment operators in action:

Expected Output:

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Assignment operator in c.

Last Updated on June 23, 2023 by Prepbytes

This type of operator is employed for transforming and assigning values to variables within an operation. In an assignment operation, the right side represents a value, while the left side corresponds to a variable. It is essential that the value on the right side has the same data type as the variable on the left side. If this requirement is not fulfilled, the compiler will issue an error.

What is Assignment Operator in C language?

In C, the assignment operator serves the purpose of assigning a value to a variable. It is denoted by the equals sign (=) and plays a vital role in storing data within variables for further utilization in code. When using the assignment operator, the value present on the right-hand side is assigned to the variable on the left-hand side. This fundamental operation allows developers to store and manipulate data effectively throughout their programs.

Example of Assignment Operator in C

For example, consider the following line of code:

Types of Assignment Operators in C

Here is a list of the assignment operators that you can find in the C language:

Simple assignment operator (=): This is the basic assignment operator, which assigns the value on the right-hand side to the variable on the left-hand side.

Addition assignment operator (+=): This operator adds the value on the right-hand side to the variable on the left-hand side and assigns the result back to the variable.

x += 3; // Equivalent to x = x + 3; (adds 3 to the current value of "x" and assigns the result back to "x")

Subtraction assignment operator (-=): This operator subtracts the value on the right-hand side from the variable on the left-hand side and assigns the result back to the variable.

x -= 4; // Equivalent to x = x – 4; (subtracts 4 from the current value of "x" and assigns the result back to "x")

* Multiplication assignment operator ( =):** This operator multiplies the value on the right-hand side with the variable on the left-hand side and assigns the result back to the variable.

x = 2; // Equivalent to x = x 2; (multiplies the current value of "x" by 2 and assigns the result back to "x")

Division assignment operator (/=): This operator divides the variable on the left-hand side by the value on the right-hand side and assigns the result back to the variable.

x /= 2; // Equivalent to x = x / 2; (divides the current value of "x" by 2 and assigns the result back to "x")

Bitwise AND assignment (&=): The bitwise AND assignment operator "&=" performs a bitwise AND operation between the value on the left-hand side and the value on the right-hand side. It then assigns the result back to the left-hand side variable.

x &= 3; // Binary: 0011 // After bitwise AND assignment: x = 1 (Binary: 0001)

Bitwise OR assignment (|=): The bitwise OR assignment operator "|=" performs a bitwise OR operation between the value on the left-hand side and the value on the right-hand side. It then assigns the result back to the left-hand side variable.

x |= 3; // Binary: 0011 // After bitwise OR assignment: x = 7 (Binary: 0111)

Bitwise XOR assignment (^=): The bitwise XOR assignment operator "^=" performs a bitwise XOR operation between the value on the left-hand side and the value on the right-hand side. It then assigns the result back to the left-hand side variable.

x ^= 3; // Binary: 0011 // After bitwise XOR assignment: x = 6 (Binary: 0110)

Left shift assignment (<<=): The left shift assignment operator "<<=" shifts the bits of the value on the left-hand side to the left by the number of positions specified by the value on the right-hand side. It then assigns the result back to the left-hand side variable.

x <<= 2; // Binary: 010100 (Shifted left by 2 positions) // After left shift assignment: x = 20 (Binary: 10100)

Right shift assignment (>>=): The right shift assignment operator ">>=" shifts the bits of the value on the left-hand side to the right by the number of positions specified by the value on the right-hand side. It then assigns the result back to the left-hand side variable.

x >>= 2; // Binary: 101 (Shifted right by 2 positions) // After right shift assignment: x = 5 (Binary: 101)

Conclusion The assignment operator in C, denoted by the equals sign (=), is used to assign a value to a variable. It is a fundamental operation that allows programmers to store data in variables for further use in their code. In addition to the simple assignment operator, C provides compound assignment operators that combine arithmetic or bitwise operations with assignment, allowing for concise and efficient code.

FAQs related to Assignment Operator in C

Q1. Can I assign a value of one data type to a variable of another data type? In most cases, assigning a value of one data type to a variable of another data type will result in a warning or error from the compiler. It is generally recommended to assign values of compatible data types to variables.

Q2. What is the difference between the assignment operator (=) and the comparison operator (==)? The assignment operator (=) is used to assign a value to a variable, while the comparison operator (==) is used to check if two values are equal. It is important not to confuse these two operators.

Q3. Can I use multiple assignment operators in a single statement? No, it is not possible to use multiple assignment operators in a single statement. Each assignment operator should be used separately for assigning values to different variables.

Q4. Are there any limitations on the right-hand side value of the assignment operator? The right-hand side value of the assignment operator should be compatible with the data type of the left-hand side variable. If the data types are not compatible, it may lead to unexpected behavior or compiler errors.

Q5. Can I assign the result of an expression to a variable using the assignment operator? Yes, it is possible to assign the result of an expression to a variable using the assignment operator. For example, x = y + z; assigns the sum of y and z to the variable x.

Q6. What happens if I assign a value to an uninitialized variable? Assigning a value to an uninitialized variable will initialize it with the assigned value. However, it is considered good practice to explicitly initialize variables before using them to avoid potential bugs or unintended behavior.

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Assignment Operators in C

Operators are a fundamental part of all the computations that computers perform. Today we will learn about one of them known as Assignment Operators in C. Assignment Operators are used to assign values to variables. The most common assignment operator is = . Assignment Operators are Binary Operators.

Types of Assignment Operators in C

Here is a list of the assignment operators that you can find in the C language:

• basic assignment ( = )
• subtraction assignment ( -= )
• addition assignment ( += )
• division assignment ( /= )
• multiplication assignment ( *= )
• modulo assignment ( %= )
• bitwise XOR assignment ( ^= )
• bitwise OR assignment ( |= )
• bitwise AND assignment ( &= )
• bitwise right shift assignment ( >>= )
• bitwise left shift assignment ( <<= )

Working of Assignment Operators in C

This is the complete list of all assignment operators in C. To read the meaning of operator please keep in mind the above example.

Example for Assignment Operators in C

Basic assignment ( = ) :

Subtraction assignment ( -= ) :

Addition assignment ( += ) :

Division assignment ( /= ) :

Multiplication assignment ( *= ) :

Modulo assignment ( %= ) :

Bitwise XOR assignment ( ^= ) :

Bitwise OR assignment ( |= ) :

Bitwise AND assignment ( &= ) :

Bitwise right shift assignment ( >>= ) :

Bitwise left shift assignment ( <<= ) :

This is the detailed explanation of all the assignment operators in C that we have. Hopefully, This is clear to you.

Practice Problems on Assignment Operators in C

1. what will be the value of a after the following code is executed.

A) 10 B) 11 C) 12 D) 15

Answer – C. 12 Explanation: a starts at 10, increases by 5 to 15, then decreases by 3 to 12. So, a is 12.

2. After executing the following code, what is the value of num ?

A) 4 B) 8 C) 16 D) 32

Answer: C) 16 Explanation: After right-shifting 8 (binary 1000) by one and then left-shifting the result by two, the value becomes 16 (binary 10000).

Q. How does the /= operator function? Is it a combination of two other operators?

A. The /= operator is a compound assignment operator in C++. It divides the left operand by the right operand and assigns the result to the left operand. It is equivalent to using the / operator and then the = operator separately.

Q. What is the most basic operator among all the assignment operators available in the C language?

A. The most basic assignment operator in the C language is the simple = operator, which is used for assigning a value to a variable.

• Assignment operators are used to assign the result of an expression to a variable.
• There are two types of assignment operators in C. Simple assignment operator and compound assignment operator.
• Compound Assignment operators are easy to use and the left operand of expression needs not to write again and again.
• They work the same way in C++ as in C.

Assignment Operators In C [ Full Information With Examples ]

Assignment Operators In C

Assignment operators is a binary operator which is used to assign values in a variable , with its right and left sides being a one-one operand. The operand on the left side is variable in which the value is assigned and the right side operands can contain any of the constant, variable, and expression.

The Assignment operator is a lower priority operator. its priority has much lower than the rest of the other operators. Its priority is more than just the comma operator. The priority of all other operators is more than the assignment operator.

We can assign the same value to multiple variables simultaneously by the assignment operator.

x = y = z = 100

Here x, y, and z are initialized to 100.

In C language, the assignment operator can be divided into two categories.

• Simple assignment operator
• Compound assignment operators

1. Simple Assignment Operator In C

This operator is used to assign left-side values ​​to the right-side operands, simple assignment operators are represented by (=).

2. Compound Assignment Operators In C

Compound Assignment Operators use the old value of a variable to calculate its new value and reassign the value obtained from the calculation to the same variable.

Examples of compound assignment operators are: (Example: + =, – =, * =, / =,% =, & =, ^ =)

Look at these two statements:

Here in this example, adding 5 to the x variable in the second statement is again being assigned to the x variable.

Compound Assignment Operators provide us with the C language to perform such operation even more effecient and in less time.

Syntax of Compound Assignment Operators

Here op can be any arithmetic operators (+, -, *, /,%).

The above statement is equivalent to the following depending on the function:

Let us now know about some important compound assignment operators one by one.

“+ =” -: This operator adds the right operand to the left operand and assigns the output to the left operand.

“- =” -: This operator subtracts the right operand from the left operand and returns the result to the left operand.

“* =” -: This operator multiplies the right operand with the left operand and assigns the result to the left operand.

“/ =” -: This operator splits the left operand with the right operand and assigns the result to the left operand.

“% =” -: This operator takes the modulus using two operands and assigns the result to the left operand.

There are many other assignment operators such as left shift and (<< =) operator, right shift and operator (>> =), bitwise and assignment operator (& =), bitwise OR assignment operator (^ =)

List of Assignment Operators In C

Read More -:

• What is Operators In C
• Relational Operators In C
• Logical Operators In C
• Bitwise Operators In C
• Arithmetic Operators In C
• Conditional Operator in C
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• C Programming Examples With Output
• 250+ C Programs for Practice PDF Free Download

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Assignment Operator in C

Using assignment operators, we can assign value to the variables.

Equality sign (=) is used as an assignment operator in C.

Here, value 5 has assigned to the variable var.

Here, value of a has assigned to the variable b . Now, both a and b will hold value 10 .

Basically, the value of right-side operand will be assigned to the left side operand.

Pictorial Explanation

Compound assignment operators

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An operator is a symbol that operates on a value or a variable. For example: + is an operator to perform addition.

C has a wide range of operators to perform various operations.

C Arithmetic Operators

An arithmetic operator performs mathematical operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division etc on numerical values (constants and variables).

Example 1: Arithmetic Operators

The operators + , - and * computes addition, subtraction, and multiplication respectively as you might have expected.

In normal calculation, 9/4 = 2.25 . However, the output is 2 in the program.

It is because both the variables a and b are integers. Hence, the output is also an integer. The compiler neglects the term after the decimal point and shows answer 2 instead of 2.25 .

The modulo operator % computes the remainder. When a=9 is divided by b=4 , the remainder is 1 . The % operator can only be used with integers.

Suppose a = 5.0 , b = 2.0 , c = 5 and d = 2 . Then in C programming,

C Increment and Decrement Operators

C programming has two operators increment ++ and decrement -- to change the value of an operand (constant or variable) by 1.

Increment ++ increases the value by 1 whereas decrement -- decreases the value by 1. These two operators are unary operators, meaning they only operate on a single operand.

Example 2: Increment and Decrement Operators

Here, the operators ++ and -- are used as prefixes. These two operators can also be used as postfixes like a++ and a-- . Visit this page to learn more about how increment and decrement operators work when used as postfix .

C Assignment Operators

An assignment operator is used for assigning a value to a variable. The most common assignment operator is =

Example 3: Assignment Operators

C relational operators.

A relational operator checks the relationship between two operands. If the relation is true, it returns 1; if the relation is false, it returns value 0.

Relational operators are used in decision making and loops .

Example 4: Relational Operators

C logical operators.

An expression containing logical operator returns either 0 or 1 depending upon whether expression results true or false. Logical operators are commonly used in decision making in C programming .

Example 5: Logical Operators

Explanation of logical operator program

• (a == b) && (c > 5) evaluates to 1 because both operands (a == b) and (c > b) is 1 (true).
• (a == b) && (c < b) evaluates to 0 because operand (c < b) is 0 (false).
• (a == b) || (c < b) evaluates to 1 because (a = b) is 1 (true).
• (a != b) || (c < b) evaluates to 0 because both operand (a != b) and (c < b) are 0 (false).
• !(a != b) evaluates to 1 because operand (a != b) is 0 (false). Hence, !(a != b) is 1 (true).
• !(a == b) evaluates to 0 because (a == b) is 1 (true). Hence, !(a == b) is 0 (false).

During computation, mathematical operations like: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, etc are converted to bit-level which makes processing faster and saves power.

Bitwise operators are used in C programming to perform bit-level operations.

Visit bitwise operator in C to learn more.

Other Operators

Comma operator.

Comma operators are used to link related expressions together. For example:

The sizeof operator

The sizeof is a unary operator that returns the size of data (constants, variables, array, structure, etc).

Example 6: sizeof Operator

Other operators such as ternary operator ?: , reference operator & , dereference operator * and member selection operator  ->  will be discussed in later tutorials.

Table of Contents

• Arithmetic Operators
• Increment and Decrement Operators
• Assignment Operators
• Relational Operators
• Logical Operators
• sizeof Operator

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C - Bitwise OR and assignment operator

The Bitwise OR and assignment operator (|=) assigns the first operand a value equal to the result of Bitwise OR operation of two operands.

(x |= y) is equivalent to (x = x | y)

The Bitwise OR operator (|) is a binary operator which takes two bit patterns of equal length and performs the logical OR operation on each pair of corresponding bits. It returns 1 if either or both bits at the same position are 1, else returns 0.

The example below describes how bitwise OR operator works:

The code of using Bitwise OR operator (|) is given below:

The output of the above code will be:

Example: Find largest power of 2 less than or equal to given number

Consider an integer 1000. In the bit-wise format, it can be written as 1111101000. However, all bits are not written here. A complete representation will be 32 bit representation as given below:

Performing N |= (N>>i) operation, where i = 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 will change all right side bit to 1. When applied on 1000, the result in 32 bit representation is given below:

Adding one to this result and then right shifting the result by one place will give largest power of 2 less than or equal to 1000.

The below code will calculate the largest power of 2 less than or equal to given number.

The above code will give the following output:

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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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What is the CIIA agreement? The ultimate guide to CIIAAs every business needs to read

Jenny Pak Director of Program Management at PandaDoc

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When you’re running a business or large organization, there will often be times when you feel the need to safeguard your confidential information and intellectual property.

While standard contracts such as NDAs can be useful, they often aren’t watertight enough for many businesses.

That’s where a CIIA agreement comes in.

If you’re wondering what a CIIA agreement is, you wouldn’t be alone — many businesses are looking into CIIA agreements as they grow in popularity.

So, let’s learn everything you need to know about them.

Key takeaways

• CIIA agreements protect your company’s confidential information.
• They’re also a great way to ensure you maintain control over your intellectual property.
• CIIA agreements can also strengthen your non-compete terms.
• PandaDoc’s templates can be used to seamlessly adopt CIIA agreements in your organization.

What is a CIIA agreement?

A Confidential Information and Invention Assignment agreement (CIIA agreement) is simply a contract that works to protect your company’s information from leaks or intellectual property theft.

CIIA agreements achieve this by legally stating that every piece of work produced by an employee is the property of the organization rather than the employee.

This makes sure that you can stay in control of the confidential information and inventions in your company.

The two main parts of a CIIA agreement can be seen when we break down the name. First of all, there’s the part relating to confidential information.

This part of the agreement ensures that all employees clearly understand their legal obligations to protect your company’s confidential or sensitive information.

The second part of a CIIA agreement is the inventions assignment agreement.

This focuses on the intellectual property — such as productions or databases — in your organization.

Employees signing the CIIA agreement agree that any intellectual property will remain under your control.

What is the purpose of the CIIAA?

These two main functions of a CIIA agreement come back to its primary purposes.

Many businesses need to protect confidential information for competitive and compliance reasons.

CIIAAs are a great way to keep this sensitive information secure within the organization through a confidentiality agreement .

In addition to this, the purpose of a CIIA agreement is to protect your company’s intellectual property.

This will reassure your senior leaders and investors that their employees are working to benefit the organization rather than just themselves.

What are the requirements of a CIIA agreement?

When you’re putting together a CIIA agreement, here are the key requirements to keep in mind:

• Specific language: As is the case with any legal documents for business , you should use as much specific language as possible to make sure that the CIIA agreement is practicable.
• Time restrictions: A common requirement of a CIIA agreement is that it’s restricted somehow. This is often related to time, so intellectual property can leave the organization’s ownership if it isn’t used after a set period of time.
• Policy alignment: You’ll need to ensure that your CIIA agreement is aligned with legislation and statutory guidance, so consult your local rules and laws before signing any CIIA agreement.

What are the benefits of CIIA agreements?

If you’re an organization with many employees, the benefits of CIIA agreements are clear. Here are some of the most significant CIIA benefits:

Improve your confidential information protection

As we’ve already highlighted, a CIIA is primarily used to protect your confidential or sensitive information.

By signing a CIIA, your employees accept that they have a legal duty to keep your information confidential.

This will be in place even after they’ve left your company, meaning it’s a great way to protect your data.

Strengthen your non-compete terms

As well as focusing on confidential information protection, CIIAs are also used to protect your company from competitors.

This is because a CIIA sets up clear expectations around intellectual property theft.

On top of this, many CIIAs include non-compete clauses .

This can stop your employees from leaving the organization to work for your competitors.

All of this helps you to strengthen your non-compete protection.

Protect company property in case of termination

A CIIA agreement is also a great way to protect company property.

On top of intellectual property, this also relates to data or any legal documents your employees may have come into contact with during their employment.

In the case of contract termination, this part of a CIIAA is beneficial.

This is because it guarantees that you’ll receive these items of company property, allowing you to have confidence that your information and ideas will remain within the organization.

What does a CIIA agreement include?

Now that you know the main benefits of using a CIIA agreement, you probably want to start implementing CIIAAs in your organization. Here are the main things to include in your CIIA agreements:

• Company details: It’s crucial that you include as much detail about your company as is necessary on the CIIA agreement, so include things such as contact details and names.
• Employee details: As well as this, you’ll have to include key employee details. This will include the employee’s name and contact information, as well as roles and responsibilities within the company.
• Confidentiality obligations : The main thing to include in your CIIA agreement is a clear explanation of the employee’s confidentiality obligations . This must be specific to your company and the employee’s role.
• Consideration: As with most legal contracts, you’ll have to include some form of consideration—this is just what the employee receives in exchange for their signature. This will be something about continued employment, but you can make it specific to your context.

Key terms for CIIA agreements

When you’re writing a CIIA agreement, you’ll have to use these key terms:

Definition of confidential information

Confidential information can mean something very different in one organization compared to another. That’s why it’s essential to write a specific definition related to your business context.

For most companies, this definition will incorporate research, customer data, employee lists, and partnership details.

Use of confidential information

You’ll also want to define a legitimate use of confidential information. Many limitations of using confidential information ensure that it is only used for the employee’s specified contract role.

Definition of inventions

Just as is the case with confidential information, you should define inventions clearly. You’ll need to create a definition that protects your specific business, but make sure to consider any trade secrets or research that your organization is working on.

Assignment of inventions

This is a key clause in any CIIA agreement. You’ll need to ensure that the assignment of inventions is given to the business rather than the employee to protect your intellectual property rights.

Return of company property

This term relates to the end of an employee’s contract. It will ensure that employees return any company data or ideas at the end of their employment.

This is especially important if you’re creating a CIIA agreement for a freelance worker or short-term employee.

Ownership rights for inventions created during work hours versus outside of work hours

As well as these key CIIA terms, you might have to determine who owns the rights for inventions created during work hours against those created outside of work hours.

It’s crucial to ensure any inventions made using company property or company data are owned by the organization, even if they were designed outside of work hours. CIIA agreements are a great tool to achieve this.

What to consider when drafting, creating and managing a CIIA agreement

When creating any employee confidentiality agreement , you should start by considering what you need to achieve.

Are your aims primarily to protect confidential information, or do you also need to assert ownership over intellectual property?

This consideration will lead to a CIIA agreement that works for you.

When writing a CIIA agreement, it’s good to start with a section explaining your rationale for the agreement. Consider why it’s so essential to protect confidential information and inventions and make this very clear in the contract.

Although disputes should be avoided when possible, you must protect yourself against them. When drafting a CIIA agreement, consider how you would resolve a dispute.

Once you’ve drafted your CIIA agreement, you’ll need to keep your aims in mind when creating the final document.

Although you might need to make small tweaks from your first draft, these aims should continue to be evident throughout the creation process.

The rationale should also be included when creating the final document.

To help keep this in place throughout the drafting process, consider using dedicated software to create a template with this rationale.

The resolution might change in the creation section as you respond to feedback from others. However, it’s an integral part of the contract, so include some resolution.

Managing a contract throughout its lifecycle can be a complex task, but you should ensure that your aims remain consistent.

You might want to use specialist software to track changes to stay on top of any changes.

Similarly, you might need to change the rationale when managing a CIIA agreement—a short edit will allow the agreement to be adapted to a different context.

Finally, remember that the CIIA agreement should include a resolution when you manage it throughout its lifecycle.

Tips for hiring a lawyer for your CIIA agreement

When you’re drafting a CIIA agreement, it can be helpful to get legal counsel. Here are the top tips for hiring a lawyer:

• Trust: You’ll want to find a lawyer you can trust implicitly. It might be useful to work with lawyers whom you’ve worked with before. Alternatively, ask friends or other professionals for recommendations.
• Specialism: It’s also crucial that your lawyer has a specialism in contract law— ideally, this would be in employee or business contract law.
• Experience and expertise: Finally, you’ll want to find a lawyer with experience and expertise. This might be a more expensive option, but it can never hurt to invest more in expertise.

Free legal document templates can help you craft the perfect agreement

CIIA agreements are a great way to ensure that your organization’s intellectual property rights are protected and that you’re successfully protecting your organization’s confidential information.

However, producing and managing legal documents such as CIIA agreements can be a daunting task.

If you want to speed up the process, look no further than PandaDoc’s free legal document templates .

These templates will allow you to use contracts such as CIIAs in your organization seamlessly.

Start optimizing your contract management with PandaDoc today!

PandaDoc is not a law firm, or a substitute for an attorney or law firm. This page is not intended to and does not provide legal advice. Should you have legal questions on the validity of e-signatures or digital signatures and the enforceability thereof, please consult with an attorney or law firm. Use of PandaDoc services are governed by our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

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Arrow operator (->) usage in C

I am reading a book called "Teach Yourself C in 21 Days" (I have already learned Java and C# so I am moving at a much faster pace). I was reading the chapter on pointers and the -> (arrow) operator came up without explanation. I think that it is used to call members and functions (like the equivalent of the . (dot) operator, but for pointers instead of members). But I am not entirely sure.

Could I please get an explanation and a code sample?

• 128 Get a better book. norvig.com/21-days.html –  joshperry Commented Apr 4, 2010 at 16:35
• 12 qrdl is correct -- the "Learn X in Y days" books are generally garbage. In addition to K&R, I would also recommend Prata's "C Primer Plus", which goes into more depth than K&R. –  J. Taylor Commented Apr 29, 2011 at 23:29
• 3 @Steve That question deals with C++. Calling it a caused some confusion for me when I started reading about operator overloading in that other answer, which is not relevant in C. –  Johann Commented May 13, 2013 at 19:42
• 1 @Belton The hard way series are bad, the guy says stuff that wasn't even relevant when he wrote the book and he doesn't care about good practices. –  Bálint Commented Jun 25, 2017 at 19:51
• 2 @uh_big_mike_boi Nonsense. Comments like these are helpfully pointing out that this is a poor book, and have provided several superior alternatives. It doesn't matter in the least whether the OP did or did not say, or thinks or does not think, it is a great book. It isn't, and that needs to be stated. Comments like yours are not helpful. –  user207421 Commented May 20 at 4:17

11 Answers 11

foo->bar is equivalent to (*foo).bar , i.e. it gets the member called bar from the struct that foo points to.

• 67 It's worth noting that if the dereference operator had been made postfix, as in Pascal, the -> operator would not have been needed at all, as it would have been equivalent to the much more legible foo*.bar . The whole mess of typedef-ing functions with all the extra parentheses would have been avoided as well. –  user207421 Commented Jan 26, 2015 at 6:04
• 1 So would foo*.bar and (*foo).bar both be equivalent to foo->bar ? What about Foo myFoo = *foo; myFoo.bar ? –  Aaron Franke Commented Jan 9, 2019 at 8:21
• 19 No, he is just saying IF the creators of C would have made the dereference operator as POSTfix operator instead of PREfix then it would have been more easy. But it IS a prefix operator in C. –  reichhart Commented Mar 16, 2019 at 9:59
• 1 @user207421 nah, it would cause more parents.. so far, there is priority of () and [] to the right above * to the left. if they all on one side, you'll have put more parents. Same in expressions, because of conflict with multiplication operator. Pascal ^ could be an option but it was reserved for bit operation, still more parents. –  Swift - Friday Pie Commented Oct 22, 2019 at 6:32
• 2 @b0fh There's no technical reason why the language designers couldn't have made dereferencing implicit in this case (Rust does it in this case and other cases as well), but they didn't. Possibly because they felt that all dereferences should be explicit in the code and/or because they wanted to keep the language rules as simple as possible. Note that C++ smart pointers have their own methods (like use_count() for shared_ptrs), so there it is necessary to distinguish between calling a method on the pointer vs. the pointee, but of course that didn't retroactively affect the design of C. –  sepp2k Commented Mar 1, 2021 at 11:39

Yes, that's it.

It's just the dot version when you want to access elements of a struct/class that is a pointer instead of a reference.

• 3 Since pvar is uninitialised, how would you initialise it if you wanted pvar to point to a new struct, that is not pvar = &var ? –  CMCDragonkai Commented Sep 26, 2015 at 14:27
• 1 The question was specifically about C, which does not have classes or reference variables. –  user2442944 Commented Dec 19, 2016 at 19:34
• 1 hmm shouldn't you do a malloc before writing to pvar struct foo* pvar; ?? pvar->y write to unallocated space! –  Zibri Commented Mar 21, 2018 at 8:46
• pvar initialization: Initialize all members manually to some defaults you want to have or use something like calloc() if zero fill would be fine for you. –  reichhart Commented Mar 16, 2019 at 10:03
• 5 shouldn't it be: pvar = malloc(sizeof(struct foo)) or malloc(sizeof(*pvar))?? –  Yuri Aps Commented Jul 14, 2019 at 2:01

I'd just add to the answers the "why?".

. is standard member access operator that has a higher precedence than * pointer operator.

When you are trying to access a struct's internals and you wrote it as *foo.bar then the compiler would think to want a 'bar' element of 'foo' (which is an address in memory) and obviously that mere address does not have any members.

Thus you need to ask the compiler to first dereference whith (*foo) and then access the member element: (*foo).bar , which is a bit clumsy to write so the good folks have come up with a shorthand version: foo->bar which is sort of member access by pointer operator.

a->b is just short for (*a).b in every way (same for functions: a->b() is short for (*a).b() ).

• 1 is there documentation that says it also works that way for methods? –  AsheKetchum Commented Jul 6, 2017 at 19:15
• @AsheKetchum It has to work that way for methods, because of the respective definitions. It doesn't need to be explicitly stated, although it may well be. –  user207421 Commented May 20 at 4:19

foo->bar is only shorthand for (*foo).bar . That's all there is to it.

Well I have to add something as well. Structure is a bit different than array because array is a pointer and structure is not. So be careful!

Lets say I write this useless piece of code:

Here pointer ptr points to the address ( ! ) of the structure variable audi but beside address structure also has a chunk of data ( ! )! The first member of the chunk of data has the same address than structure itself and you can get it's data by only dereferencing a pointer like this *ptr (no braces) .

But If you want to acess any other member than the first one, you have to add a designator like .km , .kph , .kg which are nothing more than offsets to the base address of the chunk of data ...

But because of the preceedence you can't write *ptr.kg as access operator . is evaluated before dereference operator * and you would get *(ptr.kg) which is not possible as pointer has no members! And compiler knows this and will therefore issue an error e.g.:

Instead you use this (*ptr).kg and you force compiler to 1st dereference the pointer and enable acess to the chunk of data and 2nd you add an offset (designator) to choose the member.

Check this image I made:

But if you would have nested members this syntax would become unreadable and therefore -> was introduced. I think readability is the only justifiable reason for using it as this ptr->kg is much easier to write than (*ptr).kg .

Now let us write this differently so that you see the connection more clearly. (*ptr).kg ⟹ (*&audi).kg ⟹ audi.kg . Here I first used the fact that ptr is an "address of audi " i.e. &audi and fact that "reference" & and "dereference" * operators cancel eachother out.

Here to access the values of i and j we can use the variable a and the pointer p as follows: a.i , (*p).i and p->i are all the same.

Here . is a "Direct Selector" and -> is an "Indirect Selector".

I had to make a small change to Jack's program to get it to run. After declaring the struct pointer pvar, point it to the address of var. I found this solution on page 242 of Stephen Kochan's Programming in C.

Run this in vim with the following command:

Will output:

• 4 vim tip: use % to represent the current filename. Like so: !gcc % && ./a.out –  jibberia Commented Oct 12, 2015 at 8:10

The -> operator makes the code more readable than the * operator in some situations.

Such as: (quoted from the EDK II project )

The _EFI_BLOCK_IO_PROTOCOL struct contains 4 function pointer members.

Suppose you have a variable struct _EFI_BLOCK_IO_PROTOCOL * pStruct , and you want to use the good old * operator to call it's member function pointer. You will end up with code like this:

(*pStruct).ReadBlocks(...arguments...)

But with the -> operator, you can write like this:

pStruct->ReadBlocks(...arguments...) .

Which looks better?

output is 5 5 5

• Mere code is not an answer. You have to explain. –  user207421 Commented May 20 at 4:20
• "Not an answer" flagging guidelines . –  A.R.M Commented May 21 at 17:24

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