C++ multiple operator overloads for the same operator

Question

I know I can answer this question easily for myself by generatin the code and see if it compiles. But since I couldn\'t find a similar question, I thought it\'s knowledge worth

Answer 1

Yes, you can overload operators like this. But I'm not sure what "switch case" you are referring to. You can live with one overload if you have a converting constructor

class MyClass{
...
// code for creating a MyClass out of an int
MyClass(int n) { ... }
...
inline const MyClass MyClass::operator+(const MyClass &addend) const {
    cout<<"Adding MyClass+MyClass"<

No switch is needed at all. This is eligible if "MyClass" logically represents a number.

Notice that you should overload these operators by non-member functions. In your code 5 + c1 would not work, because there is no operator that takes an int as left hand side. The following would work

inline const MyClass operator+(const MyClass &lhs, const MyClass &rhs) {
  // ...
}

Now if you keep the converting constructor you can add the int by either side with minimal code overhead.