Assignment is the most important command of languages. This is used to assign calculated values of expressions to variables. You have already seen examples of it but we did not discuss it in details so far. An assignment is nothing else than a variable on the left side of an = character and an expression on the right side.
The command calculates the expression first. The expression may contain the variable that stands on the left side. In this case the variable holds its original value while calculating the expression. When the expression is fully evaluated the command releases the old value of the variable and then assigns the new value just calculated.
The calculated value can be string, integer, real number, even undefined or a whole array. The variable can be a global variable, local variable, argument of a subroutine or function or element of an array. For example:
' This assigns the value 18 to the variable A
A = 13 + 5
' This assignes the value "apple" to the array element
B[55] = "apple"
When the right hand side of the assignment is a whole array ScriptBasic creates a copy of the array and the left hand side variable will hold the new array.
Regarding evaluation order the assignment command first calculates the variable on the left side of the command and then it calculates the expression. Why is this important? There can be some special cases. Look at the following example:
z =55
a[q()] = z
print a[56]
function q
z = z + 1
q = z
end function
Will it print 55 or 56? Because the left side of the command is evaluated first it does print 56.
Some BASIC implementations allow a keyword LET to be used before the variable on the left side of the command before the variable. This is rarely used by programmer and is not allowed by ScriptBasic.