Question

As the operator overloading (operator> and operator<) violates the rule Operator overloads have named alternates, the operator > and < require an alternative method Compare, however, since there can only be one Compare method, what should the signature of that method be?

for example, I have:

public static bool operator >(XXX lhs, XXX rhs)

and

public static bool operator <(XXX lhs, XXX rhs)

How to provide a compare method to behave the same as both greater to and less than operators?

Edit:

The int Compare() only returns positive (greater than), negative (less than) and 0 (equal), what about in my overloaded operator there is a >= operator, which means my Compare method should handle (greater to or equal to) sinario as well

What about there are >, < >= and <= four overloaded operators?

Answer 1

public static int Compare(XXX lhs, XXX rhs);

Return value:

• Less than zero
  lhs is less than rhs.
• Zero
  lhs equals rhs.
• Greater than zero
  lhs is greater than rhs.

Examples:

• DateTime.Compare Method
• Decimal.Compare Method

Usage:

// operator            // named alternative
   x < y                  Compare(x, y) < 0
   x <= y                 Compare(x, y) <= 0
   x > y                  Compare(x, y) > 0
   x >= y                 Compare(x, y) >= 0

Implementing IComparable<T> is also a good idea.