#1,099 – Overloading the Increment Operator

May 19, 2014 1 Comment

You can overload the increment (++) operator in a class, providing custom increment functionality for an object.

The example below shows an overloaded increment operator defined in a Dog class.  The effect is to add 1 to the age of the dog.  We are careful to return a reference to the object that was passed in so that no other data in the instance changes.

    public class Dog 
    {
        // Increment a Dog
        public static Dog operator ++(Dog d)
        {
            d.Age++;
            return d;
        }

        public string Name { get; set; }
        public int Age { get; set; }
        public string Nickname { get; set; }

        public Dog(string name, int age)
        {
            Name = name;
            Age = age;
            Nickname = "?";
        }

        public override string ToString()
        {
            return string.Format("{0}, Age {1}, Nickname [{2}]", Name, Age, Nickname);
        }
    }

We can use the operator as follows:

            Dog kirby = new Dog("Kirby", 10);
            kirby.Nickname = "Ball Chaser";
            Console.WriteLine(kirby);

            kirby++;
            Console.WriteLine(kirby);

1099-001

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#412 – Guidelines when Overloading == Operator for a Value Type

September 15, 2011 Leave a comment

When you overload the == operator for a value type, you should also:

  • Overload != operator
  • Override Equals method
  • Overload < and > operators

This is also true for reference types.

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#409 – Example of Overloading the == Operator

September 12, 2011 Leave a comment

Here’s a full example that shows how to overload the == operator for a reference type.

    public class PersonHeight
    {
        public int Feet { get; set; }
        public int Inches { get; set; }

        // Constructor goes here

        public override bool Equals(object obj)
        {
            return ((obj is PersonHeight) && ((PersonHeight)obj == this));
        }

        public override int GetHashCode()
        {
            return Feet.GetHashCode() ^ Inches.GetHashCode();
        }

        public static bool operator ==(PersonHeight ph1, PersonHeight ph2)
        {
            if (ReferenceEquals(ph1, ph2))
                return true;

            if (((object)ph1 == null) || ((object)ph2 == null))
                return false;

            return (ph1.Feet == ph2.Feet) && (ph1.Inches == ph2.Inches);
        }

        public static bool operator !=(PersonHeight ph1, PersonHeight ph2)
        {
            return !(ph1 == ph2);
        }

        // Also overload < and > operators
    }

Test cases:

            PersonHeight ph1 = new PersonHeight(5, 10);
            PersonHeight ph2 = new PersonHeight(5, 10);
            PersonHeight ph3 = null;

            bool check = ph1.Equals(null);
            check = ph1.Equals("NO!");
            check = ph1.Equals(ph2);
            check = PersonHeight.Equals(ph1, ph2);

            check = (ph1 == null);
            check = (ph3 == null);
            check = (ph1 == ph2);

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#399 – Overloading Unary Operators

August 29, 2011 Leave a comment

You can overload any of the following unary operators: +, -, !, ~, ++, –, true, false.  A unary operator is an operator that can be applied to a single operand.

Overloading the negation (!) operator allows us to negate an instance of a class.

            Dog kirby = new Dog("Kirby", 13);

            Dog antiKirby = !kirby;

To overload the operator, we define a new method in our class that takes an instance of a Dog and “negates” it, returning a new instance.

        public static Dog operator !(Dog d1)
        {
            string notName = new string(d1.Name.Reverse().ToArray());

            return new Dog(notName, -1 * d1.Age);
        }

Below is an example of overloading the increment (++) operator.  (We really ought to overload the decrement operator as well).

            Dog olderKirby = kirby++;

        public static Dog operator ++(Dog d1)
        {
            return new Dog(d1.Name, d1.Age++);
        }

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