Assignment Operator

The assignment operator (=) transfers the right-hand side (RHS) value or expression into the left-hand side (LHS) variable.

Python uses assignment in two main ways: single assignment and multi-target assignment.

What you'll learn

• Single assignment (=)
• Multi-target assignment on one line
• Swapping variables without a temporary variable
• Short-hand assignment operators (+=, -=, *=, …)

1. Single-line assignment

Syntax:

variable = value
variable = expression

One RHS value goes into one LHS variable.

a = 10
b = 20
c = a + b

print(a, b, c)

10 20 30

2. Multi-target assignment

Assign multiple variables in a single statement.

Syntax:

var1, var2 = value1, value2

a, b = 10, 20
c, d, e = a + b, a - b, a * b

print(c, d, e)

30 -10 200

Another example:

sno, sname, marks = 10, "Rossum", 34.56

3. Swapping variables

Python can swap two variables without a temporary variable.

a, b = 10, 20
print(a, b)

a, b = b, a
print(a, b)

10 20
20 10

4. Short-hand assignment operators

Instead of:

n = n + 5

You can write:

n += 5

Common short-hand operators:

Operator	Equivalent
+=	n = n + value
-=	n = n - value
*=	n = n * value
/=	n = n / value
//=	n = n // value
%=	n = n % value
**=	n = n ** value

Assignment vs equality

Operator	Purpose
=	Assign a value to a variable
==	Compare two values

x = 10      # assignment
x == 10     # comparison → True

Practice exercises

Exercise 1 — Assign three student details on one line:

sno, name, marks = 101, "Alice", 95.5

Exercise 2 — Swap two strings:

city1, city2 = "Hyderabad", "Delhi"
city1, city2 = city2, city1

Exercise 3 — Rewrite using short-hand:

n = n * 2

Answer: n *= 2

Quick knowledge check

1. What does = do?
   It assigns the RHS value or expression to the LHS variable.

2. What does a, b = b, a do?
   It swaps the values of a and b.

3. Is == an assignment operator?
   No. == is the equality comparison operator.

Summary

• = assigns values; it does not compare.
• Python supports single and multi-target assignment.
• a, b = b, a swaps variables without a temporary variable.
• Short-hand operators like +=, -=, and *= make updates concise.

Next lesson: Relational Operators — compare values and get True or False.