Overloading increment and decrement operators (C++ only)
You overload the prefix increment operator ++ with either a nonmember function operator that has one argument of class type or a reference to class type, or with a member function operator that has no arguments.
class X {
public:
// member prefix ++x
void operator++() { }
};
class Y { };
// non-member prefix ++y
void operator++(Y&) { }
int main() {
X x;
Y y;
// calls x.operator++()
++x;
// explicit call, like ++x
x.operator++();
// calls operator++(y)
++y;
// explicit call, like ++y
operator++(y);
}
The postfix increment operator ++ can be overloaded for a class type by declaring a nonmember function operator operator++() with two arguments, the first having class type and the second having type int. Alternatively, you can declare a member function operator operator++() with one argument having type int. The compiler uses the int argument to distinguish between the prefix and postfix increment operators. For implicit calls, the default value is zero.
class X {
public:
// member postfix x++
void operator++(int) { };
};
class Y { };
// nonmember postfix y++
void operator++(Y&, int) { };
int main() {
X x;
Y y;
// calls x.operator++(0)
// default argument of zero is supplied by compiler
x++;
// explicit call to member postfix x++
x.operator++(0);
// calls operator++(y, 0)
y++;
// explicit call to non-member postfix y++
operator++(y, 0);
}
The prefix and postfix decrement operators follow the same rules as their increment counterparts.