Variables in Elixir

Like most other programming languages, Elixir has a concept of variables. Variables are, simply put, just a place to store values or data. Variables in Elixir do not require any sort of type definition or declaration that they're variables, as you might see in languages such as JavaScript. We can declare a new variable as simply as follows:

iex(1)> greeting = "Hello There"
"Hello There"

Variables point to memory locations, so when you use them in your code, the values stored in those memory locations are automatically pulled out for you, as shown in the following example:

iex(2)> greeting
"Hello There"

While variables can be reassigned in Elixir, the actual values are immutable! This brings us to our first gotcha in Elixir: immutability.