Chapter 24. Assignment Operators
FAQ 24.01 What should assignment operators return?
Assignment operators should generally return *this by reference. This means that they adhere to the same convention used by the built-in types by allowing assignment to be used as an expression rather than simply as a statement. This allows assignment to be cascaded into larger expressions. An example follows.
FAQ 24.02 What is wrong with an object being assigned to itself?
Nothing, unless the programmer who developed the class failed to implement the assignment operator correctly.
Assigning an object to itself is called self-assignment.
No one intentionally ...
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