Assignment operator overload not getting called

Question

I have two classes, Database and Record.

class Database {
    private:
        Record* head;
    public:
        Database(Record*);
        Database();
        Database(const Database&);

        Database& operator= (const Database &data);
};

class Record {
    public:
        Record(std::string, std::string, int, int, std::string);
        Record(const Record&);
        Record();

        Record* next;
};

Now when I do this

Database PM1, PM2;
//operations on PM1
PM2 = PM1;

All that happens is the values in PM1 are assigned to PM2. The assignment overload is never called. I have no idea as to why this may be happening. I've attempted to debug as well, but the function is just never entered. What am I doing wrong?

EDIT: Here's the overload function, it may not be right, but I haven't been able to test it yet because I can't even get it to run.

Database& Database::operator= (const Database &data) {
    if(this == &data)
        return *this;
    if(data.head == NULL) {
        this->head = NULL;
        return *this;
    }
    Record *curr1, *curr2;
    curr1 = new Record(*(data.head));
    this->head = curr1;
    for(curr2 = data.head->next; curr1 != NULL && curr2 != NULL; curr1 = curr1->next) {
        curr1->next = new Record(*curr2);
        curr2 = curr2->next;
    }
    return *this;
}

Answer 1

I think because you have pointer in your Database class and I guess you did not handle that you think you overloaded operator dose not work. You do shallow copy. so you need to handle that!

Answer 2

The objects may need to have been previously instantiated in order for the copy assignment function to be called.

// So instead of doing this:
Database PM1, PM2;
PM2 = PM1;

// Try this:
Database *PM1 = new Database();
Database *PM2 = new Database();
*PM2 = *PM1;