- Equals (computing)
Equals (=), in
computing , is asymbol that is used in severalprogramming language s.Names
The equals sign is
ASCII character 61, and has multiple names that are commonly used. These include "ITU-T", "equals", "gets", and "takes". Although less commonly used, "quadrathorpe", "INTERCAL", and "half-mesh" are acceptable.Programming
The equal sign is used in many
programming language s, such as BASIC and C as theassignment operator .Other languages, such as Ada and Pascal, use variants such as
:=("becomes equal to") to avoid upsetting mathematicians with statements such as "x = x+1" (and to avoid common typos in comparisons that can happen in languages that consider assignment to be an operator that may be used anywhere in an expression. e.g., the=–=confusion in C). In these languages the:=is "not" considered an operator and may only occur between the variable and the expression of the assignment.This sign is also used by itself, and in compounds such as
<=,>=,=,/=,!=for variousrelational operator s, and in C's+=,*=etc. which mimic the primitive operations oftwo-address code .Operators
Many languages have different equality predicates, operators which test the equality of values. For instance,
Perl has the numerical equality operator=and the string equality operatoreq.Equality is a property of values, not objects. An operator which asks if two variables refer to the same data object is an "identity" predicate, such as Python's
isorCommon Lisp 'sEQ.ee also
*
Character (computing)
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
