INTRODUCTION TO PROGRAM DESIGN

Lecture 10: Operator Overloading &

Class string
Yun-Shan Hsieh (謝昀珊),
Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, NCKU

Acknowledgement: Slides template by https://slidesgo.com

Standard Library string

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Standard Library string (Cont.)

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Standard Library string (Cont.)

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Standard Library string (Cont.)

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Standard Library string (Cont.)

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Standard Library string (Cont.)

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Operators Not Required or Allowed for
Overloading
• Operators you need not overload
• The assignment operator (=) performs memberwise copy by default, but
should be overloaded for classes with pointer members.
• The address (&) operator returns a pointer to the object; this operator
also can be overloaded.
• The comma operator evaluates both expressions left to right and returns
the right one; it can also be overloaded.
• Operators you cannot overload

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Rules and Restrictions on Operator Overloading
• Operator precedence cannot be changed; use parentheses to control
evaluation order.
• Operator associativity is fixed and cannot be changed by overloading.
• Operator arity (unary/binary) is fixed; ternary ?: cannot be overloaded.
• Only existing operators can be overloaded; new ones cannot be
created.
• Operators can't be overloaded for built-in types
(e.g., changing int + int).
• Related operators (e.g., + and +=) must be overloaded separately.
• (), [], ->, and assignment operators must be overloaded as class
members; others can be member or non-member functions. 9
Overloading Binary Operators
• Binary overloaded operators as member functions
y.operator<(z);
class String {
public:
bool operator<(const String&) const;
...
};
• Binary overloaded operators as non-member functions
operator<(y, z);
bool operator<(const String&, const String&);

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Overloading the Binary Stream Insertion and
Stream Extraction Operators

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Overloading the Binary Stream Insertion and
Stream Extraction Operators (Cont.)

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Overloading the Binary Stream Insertion and
Stream Extraction Operators (Cont.)

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Overloading the Binary Stream Insertion and
Stream Extraction Operators (Cont.)

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Overloading the Binary Stream Insertion and
Stream Extraction Operators (Cont.)

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Overloading Unary Operators
• Unary overloaded operators as member functions
s.operator!();
class String {
public:
bool operator!() const;
...
};
• Unary overloaded operators as non-member functions
operator!(s);
bool operator!(const String&);

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Overloading the Increment and Decrement
Operators
• Overloading the prefix • Overloading the postfix
increment operator increment operator
• Member-function call • Member-function call
d1.operator++() d1.operator++(0)
Date& operator++(); Date operator++(int);
• Non-member function • Non-member function
operator++(d1) operator++(d1, 0)
Date& operator++(Date&); Date operator++(Date&, int);

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Case Study: A Date Class

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Case Study: A Date Class (Cont.)

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Case Study: A Date Class (Cont.)

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Case Study: A Date Class (Cont.)

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Case Study: A Date Class (Cont.)

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Case Study: A Date Class (Cont.)

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Case Study: A Date Class (Cont.)

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Case Study: A Date Class (Cont.)

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Case Study: A Date Class (Cont.)

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Case Study: A Date Class (Cont.)

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Case Study: A Date Class (Cont.)

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Dynamic Memory Management
• Obtaining dynamic memory with new
Time* timePtr{new Time};
• Releasing dynamic memory with delete
delete timePtr;
• Initializing dynamic memory
double* ptr{new double{3.14159}};
Time* timePtr{new Time{12, 45, 0}};
• Dynamically allocating built-in arrays with new[]
int* gradesArray{new int[10]{}};
• Releasing dynamically allocated built-in arrays with delete[]
delete[] gradesArray; 29
Problems of Built-in Array
• C++ doesn’t check array bounds, so out-of-range access is possible.
• Array indices must be 0 to n - 1; custom index ranges aren’t
allowed.
• Entire arrays can’t be input/output at once; each element must be
handled individually.
• Arrays can’t be compared using == or relational operators—they
compare addresses, not contents.
• When passing arrays to functions, their sizes must be passed
separately.
• One array can’t be assigned to another using the assignment
operator.
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Case Study: Array Class

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Case Study: Array Class (Cont.)

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Case Study: Array Class (Cont.)

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Case Study: Array Class (Cont.)

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Case Study: Array Class (Cont.)

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Case Study: Array Class (Cont.)

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Case Study: Array Class (Cont.)

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Case Study: Array Class (Cont.)

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Case Study: Array Class (Cont.)

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Case Study: Array Class (Cont.)

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Case Study: Array Class (Cont.)

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Case Study: Array Class (Cont.)

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Case Study: Array Class (Cont.)

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Converting Between Types
• Conversion constructor
MyClass(int value);
• Conversion operators
MyClass::operator string() const;
s.operator string()
• Overloaded cast operator functions
MyClass::operator int() const;
MyClass::operator OtherClass() const;
• Implicit calls to cast operators and conversion constructors
display(s); // argument expected to be a string object
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Single-argument Constructors and Implicit
Conversions

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Single-argument Constructors and Implicit
Conversions (Cont.)

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Demonstrating an explicit Constructor

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References
• https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/header/cmath
• https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/chrono/c/time

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Thank You Very Much!
Questions & Answers?

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