phrases - "Assign a variable to a value" or the other way round?

I was wondering which of these phrases is/are correct:

• assign a variable to a value


• assign a value to a variable

I'd say the second is correct, but I'm not a native speaker. A quick Google search reveals thousands of results such as "assign a variable to the file content", but another search returns a lot of results for the other word order ("assign a value to HTML input field").

Which of these two phrases is correct? Or are both correct?

Answer

Assign a value to a variable is correct. Alternatively, you could say assign a variable a value.

Compare assign and give:

Give a value to a variable vs. give a variable a value