Assignments give a value to a variable, replacing any previous value the variable might have had:
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Assignments
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In addition to the standard Pascal assignment operator (:=), which simply replaces the value of the variable with the value resulting from the expression on the right of the := operator, Free Pascal supports some C-style constructions. All available constructs are listed in table (13.1).
Assignment | Result |
a += b | Adds b to a, and stores the result in a. |
a -= b | Subtracts b from a, and stores the result in a. |
a *= b | Multiplies a with b, and stores the result in a. |
a /= b | Divides a through b, and stores the result in a. |
For these constructs to work, the -Sc command-line switch must be specified.
Remark: These constructions are just for typing convenience, they don’t generate different code. Here are some examples of valid assignment statements:
Keeping in mind that the dereferencing of a typed pointer results in a variable of the type the pointer points to, the following are also valid assignments:
Note the double dereferencing in the second assignment.