Skip to main content
1 of 3
Alexey Popkov
  • 62.3k
  • 7
  • 154
  • 375

Set is specially overloaded for Part in order to allow in-place modification of the expressions:

a = x -> 2;
a[[1]] = 1; a
1 -> 2

It is documented on the Documentation page for Part (the first point under "Details" section):

You can make an assignment like t[[spec]]=value to modify any part or sequence of parts in an expression. »


For your particular purpose the simplest approach is to replace Rule by Set:

Clear[x, y, z]
{x -> 2, y -> 5, z -> x + y} /. Rule -> Set
{2, 5, 7}

Another method is to Apply Set effectively replacing the head Rule by Set:

Clear[x, y, z]
Set @@@ {x -> 2, y -> 5, z -> x + y}
{2, 5, 7}

Inside of Do:

Clear[x, y, z]
Do[Set @@ a, {a, {x -> 2, y -> 5, z -> x + y}}];
{x, y, z}
{2, 5, 7}
Alexey Popkov
  • 62.3k
  • 7
  • 154
  • 375