Operator Overloading

Contents

• Operator Overloading
• Overloading Unary Operator
• Overloading Binary Operator
• Rules for overloading operator
• Type Conversion

By: Kanika Sharma 2

 Operator Overloading
• It is a type of polymorphism in which an
operator is overloaded to give user defined
meaning to it.
• Overloaded operator is used to perform
operation on user-defined data type.

By: Kanika Sharma 3

 How to do

• The return type comes first which is followed by

keyword operator, followed by operator sign,i.e., the operator
you want to overload like: +, <, ++ etc. and finally the
arguments is passed. Then, inside the body of you want
perform the task you want when this operator function is
called.
• This operator function is called when, the operator(sign)
operates on the object of that class class_name.

By: Kanika Sharma 4

 How we can implement
• Operator overloading can be done by implementing a function which
can be :
– Member Function
– Friend Function
• Operator overloading function can be a member function if the Left
operand is an Object of that class, but if the Left operand is different,
then Operator overloading function must be a non-member function.
• Operator overloading function can be made friend function if it needs
access to the private and protected members of class.

By: Kanika Sharma 5

 Points to be remember
• Precedence and Associatively of an operator cannot be
changed.
• Arity (numbers of Operands) cannot be changed. Unary
operator remains unary, binary remains binary etc.
• No new operators can be created, only existing
operators can be overloaded.
• Operator overloading cannot be used to change the way
operator works on built-in types. Operator overloading
only allows to redefine the meaning of operator for user-
defined types.
• There are two operators assignment operator(=) and
address operator(&) which does not need to be
overloaded. Because these two operators are already
By: Kanika Sharma 6
overloaded in C++ library.
Operators that are not overloaded
• scope operator - ::
• Sizeof
• member selector - .
• member pointer selector - *
• ternary operator - ?:

By: Kanika Sharma 7

 Overloading Unary Operator
• The unary operators operate on the object for which they
were called and normally, this operator appears on the
left side of the object, as in !obj, -obj, and ++obj but
sometime they can be used as postfix as well like obj++
or obj--.
• The unary operators operate on a single operand and
following are the examples of Unary operators:
– The increment (++) and decrement (--) operators.
– The unary minus (-) operator.
– The logical not (!) operator.

By: Kanika Sharma 8

 Program on overloading unary
operator
#include<iostream> void operator++(int)
using namespace std; {
class uopoverload a=++a;
b=++b;
{ }
int a,b,c;
public: void operator--()
void getvalue() {
{ a=--a;
b=--b;
cout<<"Enter the Two Numbers:"; }
cin>>a>>b; void display()
} {
cout<<a<<"\t"<<b<<endl;
• }
};

By: Kanika Sharma 9

int main()
{

uopoverload obj;
obj.getvalue();
++obj;
cout<<"Increment Complex Number\n";
obj.display();
++obj;
cout<<"Decrement Complex
Number\n";
obj.display();
return 0;
}

By: Kanika Sharma 10

 Overloading Binary Operator
• The binary operators take two arguments and following
are the examples of Binary operators. You use binary
operators very frequently like addition (+) operator,
subtraction (-) operator and division (/) operator.
• We can overload binary operator:
– With Member Functions
– With Friend Functions

By: Kanika Sharma 11

Overloading with member function
• If overloading as a member function ,binary operator
requires one argument.
• The argument contains the value of object, which is to
the right of operator.

OR

By: Kanika Sharma 12

Program on Overloading Binary Operator

#include <iostream>
int main()
using namespace std;
{
num n,p,q;
class num
n=p+q;
{
n.display();
int a=10;
return 0;
public:
}
num operator+(num x)
{
num y;
y.a=a+x.a;
return(y);
}
void display()
{
cout<<"Value is"<<a;
}
By: Kanika Sharma 13
};
Overloading with Friend Functions
• If overloading as a friend function ,binary operator
requires two argument
• Friend functions are useful when we require performing
an operation with operand of two different types.
• Friend function can be called without using an object.

By: Kanika Sharma 14

 Program on operator overloading
using friend function
void display()
#include <iostream> {
using namespace std; cout<<i<<j;
class fload }
{ friend fload operator+(fload,int);
};
public:
fload operator+(fload f,int a)
int i,j;
{
fload() fload k;
{ k.i=a+f.i;
i=0; k.j=a+f.j;
j=0; return k;;
} }
void getvalue() int main()
{ {
fload f1;
cout<<"enter values";
f1.getvalue();
cin>>i>>j; fload f2=f1+20;
} f2.display();
return 0;
By: Kanika Sharma 15
}
 Type conversion
• The C++ compiler has a way to deal with
expressions that contains variables or
constants which have different data types.
• So if we have two different types of
variables/constants in an expression, they
can be converted to one single type (either
by the compiler or explicitly by the
programmer).
• This process is known as type conversion
in C++. By: Kanika Sharma 16
 Implicit Conversion
• Implicit Type Conversion is performed by the compiler on
its own when it encounters a mixed expression in the
program.
• This is also known as automatic conversion as it is done
automatically by the compiler without the programmer’s
assistance.
• In this type of conversion, all operands are converted
upto the type of the largest operand in the expression.
This is also called as type promotion.
• Thus, the result of the expression is also of the type of
the largest operand.

By: Kanika Sharma 17

 Explicit Conversion
• When the programmer explicitly changes the data type
of an operand or an expression, then this is called as
explicit type conversion.
• It is also known as type casting.

By: Kanika Sharma 18