In programming, different languages and environments offer various ways to assign values to variables. In R, you have multiple assignment operators that can be used interchangeably at this stage of learning.

In R, specific assignment operators such as <- and -> are available alongside the more universally recognized = operator. At this point, the difference between these operators is not significant, but we will revisit this when we discuss functions.

Using <- for assignment is analogous to using =, with the variable name positioned to the left and the value to the right. Conversely, the -> operator reverses this order. For instance, to assign the value 2020 to the variable year, there are three syntactical options:

Even though the last method of assignment is syntactically correct, it is generally discouraged due to its potential to reduce code readability.

Note

Agreement: In subsequent chapters, we will primarily focus on using the left-arrow (<-) and equal (=) for assignments.