Question

I have

typedef std::string OrderID;

I would like to overload the operator ++ for this. The value of OrderID starts out at 1 and is just incremented using hex every time. Possible values are…

001

002

…

00A

00B

…

00F

010

…

1) Can you overload operators for specific type defines, so that std::string++ is not overloaded?

2) Can you increment like above (using Hex)?

Thanks

Answer 1

If you define

OrderID& operator++(OrderID& x)
{
     //...
}

it will apply to std::string as well.

You should use composition instead.

You should use a free function that does that, not necessarily on your defined type. It could also manipulate a string, and that’s fine.

void incrementString(OrderID& x)
{
  //...
}