"=", ASCII character 61.

Common names: ITU-T: equals; gets; takes. Rare: quadrathorpe; INTERCAL: half-mesh.

The equal sign is used in many programming languages, such as BASIC and C as the assignment operator. Other languages, such as Pascal, use variants such as := ("becomes equal to") to avoid upsetting mathematicians with statements such as "x = x+1".

It is also used by itself and in compounds such as <=, >=, ==, /=, != for various comparison operators , and in C's +=, *= etc. which mimic the primitive operations of two-address code .

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 operator eq.

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 is or Common Lisp's EQ.

See also

• Character (computing)