One way to implement the assignment operation is using the following steps:

1. If original and I are two distinct lists (Note: this is different from inequality; think this and &):
   1. If I am not empty:
      1. Deallocate my chain of nodes.
      2. Set myFirst and myLast to NULL.
      3. Set mySize to zero.
   2. If original is not empty:
   1. Declare nPtr containing the address of original's first node .
   2. While nPtr is pointing at something:
   1. Append (to me) a copy of the item in the node to which nPtr is pointing.
   2. Advance nPtr to the next node.
2. Return myself.