 The overloaded assignment operator has characteristics also encountered with
the copy constructor and the destructor:
    itemization(
    it() The em(copying of (private) data) occurs (1) in the copy constructor
and (2) in the overloaded assignment function.
    it() Allocated memory is deleted (1) in the overloaded assignment function
and (2) in the destructor.
    )
    The copy constructor and the destructor clearly are required. If the
overloaded assignment operator also needs to return allocated memory and to
assign new values to its data members couldn't the destructor and copy
constructor be used for that?

    As we've seen in our discussion of the destructor (section
ref(DESTRUCTOR)) the destructor can explicitly be called, but that doesn't
hold true for the (copy) constructor. But let's briefly summarize what an
overloaded assignment operator is supposed to do:
    itemization(
    it() It should delete the dynamically allocated memory controlled by the
current object;
    it() It should reassign the current object's data members using a provided
existing object of its class.
    )
    The second part surely looks a lot like copy construction. Copy
construction becomes even more attractive after realizing that the copy
constructor also initializes any reference data members the class might
have. Realizing the copy construction part is easy: just define a local object
and initialize it using the assignment operator's const reference parameter,
like this:
        verb(    Strings &operator=(Strings const &other)
    {
        Strings tmp(other);
        // more to follow
        return *this;
    })

You may think the optimization tt(operator=(Strings tmp)) is attractive,
but let's postpone that for a little while (at least until section ref(MOVE)).

    Now that we've done the copying part, what about the deleting part? And
isn't there another slight problem as well? After all we copied all right, but
not into our intended (current, tt(*this)) object.

    At this point it's time to introduce em(swapping). Swapping two variables
means that the two variables exchange their values. We'll discuss swapping in
detail in the next section, but let's for now assume that we've added a member
tt(swap(Strings &other)) to our class tt(Strings). This allows us to
complete tt(String)'s tt(operator=) implementation:
        verb(    Strings &operator=(Strings const &other)
    {
        Strings tmp(other);
        swap(tmp);
        return *this;
    })

This implementation of tt(operator=) is generic: it can be applied to
every class whose objects are swappable. How does it work?
    itemization(
    it() The information in the tt(other) object is used to initialize a
local tt(tmp) object. This takes care of the copying part of the assignment
operator;
    it() Calling tt(swap) ensures that the current object receives its new
values (with tt(tmp) receiving the current object's original values);
    it() When tt(operator=) terminates its local tt(tmp) object ceases to
exist and its destructor is called. As it by now contains the data previously
owned by the current object, the current object's original data are now
destroyed, effectively completing the destruction part of the assignment
operation.
    )
    Nice?
