What should opAssign return?

[Charles D Hixson]

Nathan Reed wrote:
> Charles D Hixson wrote:
>> What I would expect is:
>>
>> class A
>> {
>>   A opAssign(A a)
>>   {
>>      // do stuff here
>>      return this;
>>   }
>> }
>>
>> but the only examples that I can find (variant.d) return *this ... 
>> which leaves me quite confused.  Is this something special that 
>> Variant is doing to allow it to handle multiple types (I didn't follow 
>> the internals), or do I have what is supposed to be returned wrong?
> 
> 'this' is a pointer to the object, so '*this' is (a reference to) the 
> actual object.
> 
> Thanks,
> Nathan Reed

Sorry, I'm sure you think you answered the question, but I'm 
as confused as before.

Are you saying that *this is the correct thing to return?
(I know that "*this" means a pointer to this, and that "this" 
is a pointer to the object being created, but that doesn't 
help me at the point where I am confused.  I still don't know 
what should be returned.)