Operator Overloading

The operator keyword declares a function specifying what operator-symbol means when applied to instances of a class. This gives the operator more than one meaning, or "overloads" it. The compiler distinguishes between the different meanings of an operator by examining the types of its operands.

type operator operator-symbol ( parameter-list )

Remarks

You can redefine the function of most built-in operators globally or on a class-by-class basis. Overloaded operators are implemented as functions.

The name of an overloaded operator is operatorx, where x is the operator as it appears in the following table. For example, to overload the addition operator, you define a function called operator+. Similarly, to overload the addition/assignment operator, +=, define a function called operator+=.

Redefinable Operators

1   Two versions of the unary increment and decrement operators exist: preincrement and postincrement.

See General Rules for Operator Overloading for more information. The constraints on the various categories of overloaded operators are described in the following topics:

• Unary Operators

• Binary Operators

• Assignment

• Function Call

• Subscripting

• Class-Member Access

• Increment and Decrement.

• Conversion Functions

The operators shown in the following table cannot be overloaded. The table includes the preprocessor symbols # and ##.

Nonredefinable Operators

Although overloaded operators are usually called implicitly by the compiler when they are encountered in code, they can be invoked explicitly the same way as any member or nonmember function is called:

Point pt;
pt.operator+( 3 );  // Call addition operator to add 3 to pt.

Example

The following example overloads the + operator to add two complex numbers and returns the result.

// operator_overloading.cpp
// compile with: /EHsc
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

struct Complex {
   Complex( double r, double i ) : re(r), im(i) {}
   Complex operator+( Complex &other );
   void Display( ) {   cout << re << ", " << im << endl; }
private:
   double re, im;
};

// Operator overloaded using a member function
Complex Complex::operator+( Complex &other ) {
   return Complex( re + other.re, im + other.im );
}

int main() {
   Complex a = Complex( 1.2, 3.4 );
   Complex b = Complex( 5.6, 7.8 );
   Complex c = Complex( 0.0, 0.0 );

   c = a + b;
   c.Display();
}

See Also

Concepts

C++ Operators

C++ Keywords