Operator Overloading

C++ classes represent user-defined types. So, the need arises to be able to operate with these types in a different way. Some operator functions may have a different meaning when operating on different types. Operator overloading lets you define the meaning of an operator when applied to a class type object.

For example, the + operator applied to numerical types is different than when it is applied to the following Point class, which is constituted of coordinates. The language cannot specify what the + operator should do for user-defined types such as Point, as it is not in control of such types and does not know what the expected behavior is. Because of that, the language does not define the operators for user-defined types.

However, C++ allows the user to specify the behavior of most operators for user-defined types, including classes.

Here is an example of the + operator, defined for the Point class:

class Point
{
  Point operator+(const Point &other) 
  {
    Point...