Assignment Operators

The statement number = number + 5; is an example of an accumulation statement. The old value of number is incremented by 5 and the new value is stored in number.

The above statement can be replaced as follows:

number += 5;

Java provides the following assignment operators:

+= -= *= /= %=

These statements are preferable to saying number = number + 5 because they are more convenient and easier to read. You can immediately tell at a glance exactly what is being done.

The following examples are equivalent statements:

rate *= 1.05; rate = rate * 1.05;

sum += 25; sum = sum + 25;

number %= 5; number = number % 5;

The precedence of the assignment operators is the lowest of all operators.