Is there ever a valid reason to not return *this from copy assignment operator? [duplicate]
The example from the standard is std::atomic. It returns the assigned value. If it returned reference, then reading through it might yield different result.
Implementing valuelike copy-assignment operator
You are correct. Your version does not only work it is also more efficient since existing memory can be reused when ps->capacity() >= rhs.ps->capacity(). If you want to provide strong exception guarantees you should use the copy-and-swap idiom: HasPtrValue& HasPtrValue::operator=(HasPtrValue copy) // notice the by value { swap(*this, copy); return...