Copy Assignment Operator

Copy Assignment Operator

The problem is that the assignment of classObj2 = classObj1; merely copied the pointer for dataObj, resulting in classObj1's dataObj and classObj2's dataObj members both pointing to the same memory location. Printing classObj2 prints 9 but for the wrong reason, and if classObj1's dataObj value was later changed, classObj2's dataObj value would seemingly magically change too. Additionally, destroying classObj1 frees that dataObj's memory; destroying classObj2 then tries to free that same memory, causing a program crash. Furthermore, a memory leak has occurred because neither dataObj is pointing at location 81. . The solution is to overload the "=" operator by defining a new function, known as the copy assignment operator or sometimes just the assignment operator, that copies one class object to another. Such a function is typically defined as:

class MyClass {
   public:
      ...
      MyClass& operator=(const MyClass& objToCopy);
      ...
};

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Children

1. Implementation