Question

I need to return a method in an operator function.

        public int Add()
        {
            return 1;
        }
        public static int operator +()
        {
            return Add;
        }

I will need to do this for a multiply, subtract and divide operator/function too.

Thanks

Answer 1

You can’t declare parameterless operators. You can declare an operator to return an appropriate delegate – e.g. Func<int> – but it would be a pretty odd thing to do, IMO.

If you can tell us more about what you’re trying to achieve, we can probably help you to work out a cleaner design.

Here’s a pretty strange example overloading the unary + operator:

using System;

class Weird
{
    private readonly int amount;

    public Weird(int amount)
    {
        this.amount = amount;
    }

    private int Add(int original)
    {
        return original + amount;
    }

    // Very strange. Please don't do this.
    public static Func<int, int> operator +(Weird weird)
    {
        return weird.Add;
    }
}

class Test
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Weird weird = new Weird(2);
        Func<int, int> func = +weird;
        Console.WriteLine(func(3));
    }
}

EDIT: If you’re just trying to implement a Rational type, you’re more likely to want:

public struct Rational
{
    // Other members

    public Rational Add(Rational other)
    {
        ...
    }

    public static Rational operator +(Rational left, Rational right)
    {
        return left.Add(right);
    }
}