SyntaxError: cannot assign to expression here. Maybe you meant '==' instead of '='?

SyntaxError: cannot assign to expression here. Maybe you meant '==' instead of '='? #

The Python "SyntaxError: cannot assign to expression here. Maybe you meant '==' instead of '='?" occurs when we have an expression on the left-hand side of an assignment. To solve the error, specify the variable name on the left and the expression on the right-hand side.

Here is an example of how the error occurs.

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# ⛔️ SyntaxError: cannot assign to expression here. Maybe you meant '==' instead of '='?
my-variable = 5

If this is how you got the error, use an underscore instead of a hyphen.

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my_variable = 5

print(my_variable)  # 👉️ 5

The name of a variable must start with a letter or an underscore.

A variable name can contain alpha-numeric characters (a-z, A-Z, 0-9) and underscores _.

Variable names cannot contain any other characters than the aforementioned.

Here is another example of how the error occurs.

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a = 20
b = 5

# ⛔️ SyntaxError: cannot assign to expression here. Maybe you meant '==' instead of '='?
a/b = 4

We have an expression on the left-hand side which is not allowed.

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a = 20
b = 5

result = a / b
print(result)  # 👉️ 4.0

If you mean to compare two values, use double equals sign.

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a = 20
b = 5

if a/b == 4:
    # 👇️ this runs
    print('Success')
else:
    print('Failure')

Notice that we use double equals == when comparing two values and a single equal = sign for assignment.

If you got the error when declaring a variable that stores a dictionary, use the following syntax.

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my_dict = {'name': 'Alice', 'age': 30, 'tasks': ['dev', 'test']}

Notice that each key and value are separated by a colon and each key-value pair is separated by a comma.

Conclusion #

The Python "SyntaxError: cannot assign to expression here. Maybe you meant '==' instead of '='?" occurs when we have an expression on the left-hand side of an assignment. To solve the error, specify the variable name on the left and the expression on the right-hand side.