I am creating a template Vector<T,n>
struct and trying to overload some arithmetic operations. However, even when I did overload the operators, I'm getting no match errors. Code shown below.
In my Vector.hpp
file I have the following code:
template <typename T, int n>
struct Vector
{
T data[n];
template <typename S>
Vector<T, n> operator+(Vector<S, n> &vec);
...
}
typedef Vector<int, 3> vec3i;
And in Vector.cpp
:
template <typename T, int n>
template <typename S>
Vector<T, n> Vector<T, n>::operator+(Vector<S, n> &vec)
{
T arr[n];
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
{
arr[i] = this->data[i] + (T)vec->data[i];
}
Vector<T, n> result(arr);
return result;
}
However, when I invoked this operator in main, it won't compile:
int main(int argc, char const *argv[])
{
vec3i vec1 = Vec3i(1,2,3);
vec3i vec2 = Vec3i(4,5,6);
vec3i vec3 = vec1 + vec2;
std::cout << vec3.x << "," << vec3.y << "," << vec3.z <<"\n";
return 0;
}
Here's the error message:
no operator "+" matches these operands -- operand types are: vec3i + vec3i
no match for ‘operator+’ (operand types are ‘vec3i {aka Vector<int, 3>}’ and ‘vec3i {aka Vector<int, 3>}’)GCC
no match for ‘operator+’ (operand types are ‘vec3i {aka Vector<int, 3>}’ and ‘vec3i {aka Vector<int, 3>}’)GCC
Any idea on what I'm doing wrong?
Since addition is a binary operator you need to supply two arguments to overload it. Furthermore, if your addition operator should be commutative, it should be implemented as a non-member.
Here is a working example:
class X
{
public:
X& operator+=(const X& rhs) // compound assignment (does not need to be a member,
{ // but often is, to modify the private members)
/* addition of rhs to *this takes place here */
return *this; // return the result by reference
}
// friends defined inside class body are inline and are hidden from non-ADL lookup
friend X operator+(X lhs, // passing lhs by value helps optimize chained a+b+c
const X& rhs) // otherwise, both parameters may be const references
{
lhs += rhs; // reuse compound assignment
return lhs; // return the result by value (uses move constructor)
}
};
which I shamelessly stole from here.