How to differentiate between overloading the 2 versions of operator ++ ?
const T& operator ++(const T& rhs)
which one?
i++;
++i;
How to differentiate between overloading the 2 versions of operator ++ ?
const T& operator ++(const T& rhs)
which one?
i++;
++i;
These operators are unary, i.e., they do not take a right hand side parameter.
As for your question, if you really must overload these operators, for the preincrement use the signature const T& operator ++()
, and for the postincrement, const T& operator(int)
. The int parameter is a dummy.
For the non-member versions, a function with one parameter is prefix while a function with two parameters and the second being int
is postfix:
struct X {};
X& operator++(X&); // prefix
X operator++(X&, int); // postfix
For the member-versions, the zero-parameter version is prefix and the one-parameter version taking int
is postfix:
struct X {
X& operator++(); // prefix
X operator++(int); // postfix
};
The int
parameter to calls of the postfix operators will have value zero.
for the postfix ++ and -- operators, the function must take a dummy int
argument. if it has no argument, then it's the prefix operator
Think of postfix increment i++
as having a second (missing) parameter (i.e. i++x
). So postfix increment signature has a righthand parameter while the prefix increment does not.