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Operator Overloading In C#

In this article, we will discuss operator overloading in C#.

Purpose

Operator overloading in C# allows developers to redefine or overload the behavior of operators (such as +, -, *, etc.) for user-defined types like classes or structs.

Scenario

Consider an example in which we have a class called WeekClass.

public class WeekClass { 
    public enum WeekDays { 
        Sunday, 
        Monday, 
        Tuesday, 
        Wednesday, 
        Thursday, 
        Friday, 
        Saturday 
    } 
  
    public WeekClass() { 
        CurrentDayOfWeek = WeekDays.Monday; 
    } 
  
    public WeekDays CurrentDayOfWeek { 
        get; 
        set; 
    } 
  
}

The purpose of this class is to hold the current day of the week. The requirement is to implement an increment (++) operator for the class, so every time we increment the class, it would return the next day of the week. In the current scenario operator overloading is a useful approach.

Syntax

public static <return_type> operator<operator_type>(<input_parameters>)

Implementation

public static WeekClass operator++(WeekClass wc) { 
    switch (wc.CurrentDayOfWeek) { 
    case WeekDays.Monday: 
        wc.CurrentDayOfWeek = WeekDays.Tuesday; 
        break; 
    case WeekDays.Tuesday: 
        wc.CurrentDayOfWeek = WeekDays.Wednesday; 
        break; 
    case WeekDays.Wednesday: 
        wc.CurrentDayOfWeek = WeekDays.Thursday; 
        break; 
    case WeekDays.Thursday: 
        wc.CurrentDayOfWeek = WeekDays.Friday; 
        break; 
    case WeekDays.Friday: 
        wc.CurrentDayOfWeek = WeekDays.Saturday; 
        break; 
    case WeekDays.Saturday: 
        wc.CurrentDayOfWeek = WeekDays.Sunday; 
        break; 
    case WeekDays.Sunday: 
        wc.CurrentDayOfWeek = WeekDays.Monday; 
        break; 
    } 
  
    return wc; 
}

How To Use

WeekClass wc = new     WeekClass(); 
Console.WriteLine(wc.CurrentDayOfWeek); 
wc++; 
Console.WriteLine(wc.CurrentDayOfWeek);

Output

Click to Enlarge

Benefits

Simplified programming syntax
Abstraction.

Code

public class WeekClass { 
    public enum WeekDays { 
        Sunday, 
        Monday, 
        Tuesday, 
        Wednesday, 
        Thursday, 
        Friday, 
        Saturday 
    } 
  
    public WeekClass() { 
        CurrentDayOfWeek = WeekDays.Monday; 
    } 
  
    public WeekDays CurrentDayOfWeek { 
        get; 
        set; 
    } 
  
    public static WeekClass operator++(WeekClass wc) { 
        switch (wc.CurrentDayOfWeek) { 
        case WeekDays.Monday: 
            wc.CurrentDayOfWeek = WeekDays.Tuesday; 
            break; 
        case WeekDays.Tuesday: 
            wc.CurrentDayOfWeek = WeekDays.Wednesday; 
            break; 
        case WeekDays.Wednesday: 
            wc.CurrentDayOfWeek = WeekDays.Thursday; 
            break; 
        case WeekDays.Thursday: 
            wc.CurrentDayOfWeek = WeekDays.Friday; 
            break; 
        case WeekDays.Friday: 
            wc.CurrentDayOfWeek = WeekDays.Saturday; 
            break; 
        case WeekDays.Saturday: 
            wc.CurrentDayOfWeek = WeekDays.Sunday; 
            break; 
        case WeekDays.Sunday: 
            wc.CurrentDayOfWeek = WeekDays.Monday; 
            break; 
        } 
  
        return wc; 
    } 
}

Posted By -	Karan Gupta

Posted On -	Wednesday, April 1, 2015

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