overloading of the operator += code example
Example 1: Explain operator overloading with an example.
In C++, we can change the way operators work for user-defined types like objects and structures. This is known as operator overloading. For example,
Suppose we have created three objects c1, c2 and result from a class named Complex that represents complex numbers.
Since operator overloading allows us to change how operators work, we can redefine how the + operator works and use it to add the complex numbers of c1 and c2 by writing the following code:
result = c1 + c2;
instead of something like
result = c1.addNumbers(c2);
This makes our code intuitive and easy to understand.
Note: We cannot use operator overloading for fundamental data types like int, float, char and so on.
Syntax for C++ Operator Overloading
To overload an operator, we use a special operator function.
class className {
... .. ...
public
returnType operator symbol (arguments) {
... .. ...
}
... .. ...
};
Example 2: c++ overload operator
#include <iostream>
class ExampleClass {
public:
ExampleClass() {}
ExampleClass(int ex) {
example_ = 0;
}
int& example() { return example_; }
const int& example() const { return example_; }
ExampleClass operator+ (const ExampleClass& second_object_of_class) {
ExampleClass object_of_class;
object_of_class.example() = this -> example() + second_object_of_class.example();
return object_of_class;
}
private:
int example_;
};
int main() {
ExampleClass c1, c2;
c1.example() = 1;
c2.example() = 2;
ExampleClass c3 = c1 + c2;
std::cout << c3.example();
}