Why does operator = return *this?

Question

Say I want to override the operator = so I can do something like

Poly p1;  // an object representing a polynomial
Poly p2;  // another object of the         


        

Answer 1

Returning a reference to the target object allow assignment chaining (cascading), and overloading operators within a class follows right-associative (click here for detailed operator overloading rules)

Poly a, b, c;
a = b = c;