CSC-210
OBJECT ORIENTED PROGRAMMING
ABDUL ATTAYYAB KHAN
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Operator Overloading
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CONTENTS
Adding Meaning to Operators.
Syntax for Operator Overloading.
Overloading Arithmetic Operators.
Overloading Binary Operators.
Overloading addition operator.
Overloading subtraction operator.
Defining operator function outside Class definition
Overloading short hand operators.
Overloading increment or decrement in prefix form.
What cannot be overloaded.
ADDING MEANING TO OPERATORS
Consider a class that defines a complex number. A complex number consists of real
and imaginary parts.
Thus, the addition of two complex numbers cannot be represented equivalently to
the arithmetic addition of two real numbers.
To add two complex numbers, we would be required to write a function that
probably takes two complex numbers as parameters and returns another complex
number as a result.
The function declaration may look like the following:
Complex AddComplex (Complex C1, Complex C2);
In the above declaration, Complex is a class that defines a complex number. A call
to the above method would be as follows:
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Complex c3=AddComplex(c1, c2);
Since it is an addition of two numbers that we are representing in the above
statement, the program code would be more readable if we could write the above
statement as:
Complex c3= c1 + c2;
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ADDING MEANING TO OPERATORS
Complex c3= c1 + c2;
The above statement indicates two numbers c1 and c2.
The actual operation is more involved than a simple arithmetic addition between
two numbers, we would be required to add more meaning to the ‘+’ operator in the
specified context. The C++ feature called operator overloading does this.
Operator overloading allows to override the default meaning of assigned to the
regular operators in a given context.
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SYNTAX FOR OPERATOR OVERLOADING
The general syntax for declaring an operator overloading method is as follows:
retun_type classname::operator# (argument-list)
{
// operations;
}
Here the # sign is replaced by the operator to be overloaded and the return-type
defines the return type of the method.
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OVERLOADING ARITHMETIC OPERATORS
First we will consider overloading arithmetic operators such as the addition (‘+’)
and the subtraction (‘-’) operators. These are binary operators; it means they
require two operands.
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OVERLOADING ARITHMETIC OPERATORS
Overloading Binary Operators:
Overloading addition operator
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OVERLOADING ARITHMETIC OPERATORS (TASK)
Overloading Binary Operators:
Overloading addition operator
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OVERLOADING ARITHMETIC OPERATORS
Overloading Binary Operators:
Overloading subtraction operator
Overloading subtraction operator is a straightforward as overloading addition
operator.
First, we declare the function prototype in the class declaration as follows:
Complex_operator-(Complex complex)
The function implementation is similar to the implementation of the overloaded
addition operator function. The function definition is shown below:
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OVERLOADING ARITHMETIC OPERATORS
Defining operator function outside Class definition:
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OVERLOADING SHORT HAND OPERATORS
will discuss overloading of assignment operators. We will overload += and -=operators.
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OVERLOADING SHORT HAND OPERATORS (TASK)
will discuss overloading of assignment operators. We will overload += and *=operators.
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OVERLOADING INCREMENT & DECREMENT OPERATORS IN
PREFIX FORM
will discuss overloading of ++ and - - operators.
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OVERLOADING INCREMENT & DECREMENT OPERATORS IN
POSTFIX FORM (TASK)
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THIS KEYWORD IN C++
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OVERLOADING SPECIAL OPERATORS
Overloading of some special operators like: array subscripting operator [ ] ,
function calling ( ) and class member axis operator -> brings some useful task to
achieve.
But there are some restrictions while overloading these operators:
They must be non-static member functions.
These functions cannot be friend function to overload.
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OVERLOADING SPECIAL OPERATORS
OVERLOADING ARRAY ACCESS OPERATOR [ ]:
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OVERLOADING SPECIAL OPERATORS (TASK)
OVERLOADING FUNCTION CALL OPERATOR ( ):
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RULES AND RESTRICTION FOR OPERATOR OVERLOADING
Overloading of the following operators is not allowed:
The scope resolution operator : :
The pointer to member operator .*
The ternary operator ? :
The dot operator .
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