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) {
... .. ...
}
... .. ...
};