Accumulation, Assignments and Index Operators

Introduction to the accumulation operators

An accumulation operator is a mathematical function that takes a sequence of values and produces a running total of those values. It’s also sometimes called a summation operator or cumulative sum.

The most common symbol used to represent the accumulation operator is the Greek capital letter Sigma ($Σ$), which indicates a sum. For example, if we have a sequence of numbers: ${a_1, a_2, a_3, ..., a_n}$, the accumulation operator can be used to produce the sum: