Augmented Assignment Operators in Go

In programming, it is common to use assignments to modify the contents of a variable.

Everything to the right of the equals sign (=) is evaluated first, so we can say:

myVar = myVar + 5

to add 5 to myVar.

Since this is such a common pattern, there are operators which do both a mathematical operation and assignment in one step.

One such operator is the += operator:

myVar := 10
myVar += 5
fmt.Println(myVar) // Output: 15

This code would print 15 to the console. We call myVar += 5 an augmented assignment.

There is one such operator for every other arithmetic operator we've learned:

For subtraction: -=

myVar := 10
myVar -= 5 // short for myVar = myVar - 5
fmt.Println(myVar) // Output: 5

For multiplication: *=

myVar := 3
myVar *= 5 // short for myVar = myVar * 5
fmt.Println(myVar) // Output: 15

For division: /=

myVar := 20
myVar /= 4 // short for myVar = myVar / 4
fmt.Println(myVar) // Output: 5

For remainder: %=

myVar := 11
myVar %= 3 // short for myVar = myVar % 3
fmt.Println(myVar) // Output: 2

Assignment
Follow the Coding Tutorial and let's do some augmented assignments.

Hint
Look at the examples above if you get stuck.