Key Concepts in Variable Assignment

In programming, assignment refers to the process of storing a specific value in a declared variable.

For example, x = 5 means that the value 5 is stored in the variable x.

This act of assigning a value at the time of declaration is often referred to as initialization, a concept introduced in the previous lesson.

In programming, the = symbol does not mean "equals" as in mathematics, but rather means assign the value on the right to the variable on the left.

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number = 10

message = "Hello, Python!"

In the code above, number = 10 means assigning the number 10 to the variable number.

Similarly, message = "Hello, Python!" assigns the string "Hello, Python!" to the variable message.

In programming, if you want to compare values rather than assign them, use two equal signs == to represent equality.

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if number == 10:
    print("number is 10.")

In Python, you can assign a new value to a variable that already holds data.

When this happens, the old value is overwritten by the new one.

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number = 10  # Assign the value 10 to the variable number

number = 15  # Reassign the new value 15 to number, which was initially 10

Python allows you to assign values to multiple variables at once using a single line of code.

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x, y, z = 5, 10, 15 # Assign 5 to x, 10 to y, and 15 to z

print(x)  # Outputs 5

print(y)  # Outputs 10

print(z)  # Outputs 15

Try reassigning the value of the variable student_name.