The assignment sign (=)

In programming, the = sign is known as the assignment sign. It means that a value on the right of the = sign is being assigned to a variable on the left.

For example, we have the statement x = y. This is defined in programming terminology as x ← y.

In the editor, we will type, as an example:

x = 5

y = 10

x = y

print ("x =", x)

print ("y =", y)

Once run, it will give the output:

x = 10

y = 10

The variable x may have an initial value of 5, but since x = y (x ← y), the value of x changes to 10 with y remaining unchanged.

If we change the third line of the code to y = x, x will be assigned to y and the output will be as follows:

x = 5

y = 5

Mathematically, x = y and y = x mean the same thing, but it is completely different in programming as with the examples shown above.