What does ":=" mean in Pseudocode?

Aneem picture Aneem · Apr 21, 2012 · Viewed 7.9k times · Source

Really basic syntax question in pseudocode. What does := mean in Pseudocode?
Example

a := 1

Answer

Tim Pietzcker picture Tim Pietzcker · Apr 21, 2012

Pseudocode examples on Wikipedia usually use := as the assignment operator, like Pascal does (I haven't found any counterexamples yet).

You can't use it in Python directly as it would be a SyntaxError:

>>> a := 1
  File "<stdin>", line 1
    a := 1
      ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Use

a = 1

instead.