Assignment is performed with the operator
=. It means “Take the right-hand side (often
called the rvalue) and copy it into the left-hand
side (often called the lvalue).” An rvalue
is any constant, variable, or expression that can produce a value, but an lvalue
must be a distinct, named variable (that is, there must be a physical space in
which to store data). For instance, you can assign a constant value to a
variable (A = 4;), but you cannot assign anything to constant value
– it cannot be an lvalue (you can’t say 4 =
A;).