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Siva Nookala - 18 Feb 2019
Arithmetic Compound Assignment Operators In Java are used to combine an arithmetic operation with an assignment operation. e.g., marks += 5; instead of marks = marks + 5; Compound assignment operators provide a shorter syntax for assigning the result of an arithmetic operator.

If the we want to multiply a variable score by 3 and assign it to the same variable score, we could use score *= 3; instead of using score = score * 3; The general syntax of the compound assignment operators is
var op= expression;
  • Compound assignment is supported for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and modulus and the corresponding operators respectively are +=, -=, *=, /=, %=
  • Compound assignment operators are faster than performing the operation and then assigning. i.e. doing score *= 3; is faster than score = score * 3;
Compound Assignment Operators
class CompoundAssignments
{
    public static void main(String arg[])
    {
        int x = 5;
        int y = 2;
        int z = 3;
        
        x += 6; // LINE A
        y *= 8; // LINE B
        z += y * x; // LINE C
        z %= 7; // LINE D
        
        System.out.println("x = " + x);
        System.out.println("y = " + y);
        System.out.println("z = " + z);
    
    }
}
OUTPUT

x = 11
y = 16
z = 4

DESCRIPTION

Here, we have declared three variables x, y and z and initialized them.
In LINE A, 6 is added to previous x value, which is 5 and assigned to x again. So x becomes 11 (= 5 + 6).
In LINE B, the value of y is changed to 16 (= 8 * 2) from 2.
In LINE C, the y * x (= 16 * 11 = 176) is added to z and assigned to z again. So z changes from 3 to 179 (= 176 + 3).
In LINE D, the value of z % 7 is assigned to z, so z becomes 4 (= 179 % 7).

THINGS TO TRY
  • Change the order of the lines A, B, C and D to B, A, D and C and see what will be the output. Try some other order of lines and check if the output is per your understanding.
  • Change the order of the lines such that the x is 11, y is 16 and z is 25 at the end of the program.
  • Try other operators like -= and /=.

2-min video about compound assignment operators

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