Question

Example:

long a;
BoundedCounter e;

So I want to assign the value of the private variable counter in the class to a.

a=e;

Tried using this:

long int & operator=(long b)
{
    b=counter;
    return b;
}

and

long int & operator=(long b, BoundedCounter &a)
{
   b=a.getCounter();
   return b;
}

Which return a compile error:

cannot convert BoundedCounter' to
long int’ in assignment

and

`long int& operator=(long int, BoundedCounter&)’ must be a nonstatic member function

How do I define an operator= outside of the class which will work when the left side is a normal variable and not an object?

Answer 1

operator= is unsuitable here as the left-hand side of the assignment is a primitive type (and you cannot define operator= for primitive types). Try giving BoundedCounter an operator long, e.g.:

class BoundedCounter
{
public:
    // ...
    operator long() const
    {
        return counter;
        // or return getCounter();
    }
};