Copy Constructor and Copy Assignment Operator

We’ll now create the copy constructor and copy assignment operator for the ProteinDatabase class.

The main reason we need these functions is because our class uses dynamic memory to store protein IDs and sequences. Without custom copy functions, multiple objects could end up sharing the same memory, leading to crashes or double deletion errors.

A copy constructor is called when a new object is created from another existing object, while a copy assignment operator is called when one existing object is assigned to another.

Both of these functions perform a deep copy, meaning each object gets its own copy of the data.

Copy Constructor

The copy constructor is used when we want to create a new ProteinDatabase object as a copy of another one. For example: