Shorthand Operators

The += shorthand operator, commonly called the "Addition Assignment Operator", basically means "increment the current value of this variable by...`.

Example:

result += 5

This will increase the result by 5. If the original value was 9, it will now be 14.

Take a look at the official documentation here

There are other common such variables, such as -=, *= and so on. Good luck.

Hi Daniel,

It can be a little confusing at first, but there are a few of these shorthand operators. As Christian has said. You can also use this to concatenate strings (I believe C# is the same).

As you initially said var = var + otherVar was replaced with var += otherVar. This is shorthand and it saves you a few characters, also makes your code a bit more compact.

In mathematical operations, you can also use -=, *= and /=.

With +=, the variable on the left equal to itself + the variable on the right. The easiest way to explain might be some basic examples:

abc = 10;
def = 5;

abc += def;
// abc = abc + def
// abc = 10 + 5
// abc = 15

abc -= def;
// abc = abc - def
// abc = 15 - 5
// abc = 10

abc *= def;
// abc = abc * def
// abc = 10 * 5
// abc = 50

abc /= def;
// abc = abc / def
// abc = 10 / 5
// abc = 10

I hope this helps, happy to clarify if you need.

This may be a little confusing at first but it is pretty straightforward. The += just means you are adding variable to itself plus another variable. The shorthand allows you to omit writing out the whole statement.

int counter = 1;
counter = counter + 2;
//evaluates the same as
counter += 2;