Question

Write any eight rules for operator overloading.

Answer 1

Eight rules for operator overloading are as follows:

1. Only existing operators can be overloaded. New operators cannot be created.

2. The overloaded operator must have at least one operand that is of a user-defined type.

3. The basic meaning of an operator cannot change. i.e., we cannot redefine the plus (+) operator to subtract one value from another.

4. The overloaded operators follow the syntax rules of the original operators.

5. The following are some operators that cannot be overloaded:
   Size of operator

   • . Membership operator
   • * Pointer to member operator
   • :: Scope resolution operator
   • ?: Conditional operator

6. Following certain operators cannot be overloaded using friend functions, but member functions can be used to overload them:

   • = Assignment operator
   • () Function call operator
   • [] Subscripting operator
   • → Class member access operator

7. Unary operators, overloaded by means of a member function, take no explicit arguments and return no explicit values.

8. Unary operators, overloaded by means of a friend function, take one reference argument.