= Operator (C# Reference)
Visual Studio 2012
The assignment operator (=) stores the value of its right-hand operand in the storage location, property, or indexer denoted by its left-hand operand and returns the value as its result. The operands must be of the same type (or the right-hand operand must be implicitly convertible to the type of the left-hand operand).
The assignment operator cannot be overloaded. However, you can define implicit conversion operators for a type, which enable you to use the assignment operator with those types. For more information, see Using Conversion Operators (C# Programming Guide).
class Assignment { static void Main() { double x; int i; i = 5; // int to int assignment x = i; // implicit conversion from int to double i = (int)x; // needs cast Console.WriteLine("i is {0}, x is {1}", i, x); object obj = i; Console.WriteLine("boxed value = {0}, type is {1}", obj, obj.GetType()); i = (int)obj; Console.WriteLine("unboxed: {0}", i); } } /* Output: i is 5, x is 5 boxed value = 5, type is System.Int32 unboxed: 5 */
