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Operator Overloading In C#

In this post I will explain about operator overloading in C#. There are benefits associated with operator overloading, but let us first work on an example so that we can understand the benefits in a better manner.

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. Now our requirement is to implement increment (++) operator for the class, so that every time we increment the class, it would return 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>)

So the above scenario is implemented like

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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