Why is the assignment operator not called in this case in favor of the copy constructor?

Question

From the wikipedia page for copy constructors:

X a = X();     

// valid given X(const X& copy_from_me) but not valid given X(X& copy_from_me)
// bec         


        

Answer 1

Because the code is constructing an object. The = sign here is initializing, not assigning. You can only assign to an existing object, not to one that's under construction.