Question

I want to calculate area and perimeter of rects using the following code:

    rect a;
    a = ( -----
          !   !
          -----a );
std::cout << a.area() << std::endl;
std::cout << a.perimeter() << std::endl;

For this purpose I crafted the following class:

class rect
{
public:
    rect():w(0), h(2) {}
    rect& operator - () { w += 0.5f; return *this; }
    rect& operator - (rect&) { w += 0.5f; return *this; }
    rect& operator -- (int a) { w += a; return *this; }
    rect& operator -- () { w += 1; return *this; }
    rect& operator ! () { h += 0.5f; return *this; }
    void clear() { w = 0; h = 2; }
    int area() { return w * h; }
    int perimeter() { return 2 * w + 2 * h; }
    int width() { return w; }
    int height() { return h; }
private:
    float w;
    float h;
};

Here are some usage examples:

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    rect a;

    a = ( -----
          !   !
          -----a );

    std::cout << a.area() << std::endl;
    std::cout << a.perimeter() << std::endl;
    std::cout << a.width()  << std::endl;
    std::cout << a.height() << std::endl;

    std::cout << std::endl;

    a.clear();

    a = ( ----------
          !        !
          !        !
          !        !
          !        !
          ---------a );

    std::cout << a.area() << std::endl;
    std::cout << a.perimeter() << std::endl;
    std::cout << a.width()  << std::endl;
    std::cout << a.height() << std::endl;

    return 0;
}

Here are my questions:

1. Can it be done without involving any floating point arithmetic?
   (indeed, it is an integer grid)

2. Can it be generalized on a 3D case? I.e:

   cuboid b;
   b = (  ---------
         /        /!
        ! -------! !
        !        ! !
        !        ! !
        !        !/
        ---------b );
   
   std::cout << b.volume() << std::endl;
   

Answer 1

I had to change the ‘/’ operator to be ‘+’, Since there is no prefix ‘/’ operator. + works great though. Oh and it uses ints. I only tested it once with the case you provided but as far as I could tell it should work.

class cuboid
{
        int w,h,l;
public:
        cuboid () : w(2), h(3), l(6) {}
        cuboid& operator - () { w += 1; return *this; }
        cuboid& operator - (cuboid&) { w += 1; return *this; }
        cuboid& operator -- (int) { w += 2; return *this; }
        cuboid& operator -- () { w += 2; return *this; }
        cuboid& operator ! () { h += 1; return *this; }
        cuboid& operator + () { l += 1; return *this; }
        cuboid& operator + (cuboid&) { l += 1; return *this; }
        cuboid& operator ++ () { l += 2; return *this; }
        cuboid& operator ++ (int) { l += 2; return *this; }

        void clear () { w = 2; h = 3; l = 6; }
        int width () const { return w / 3; }
        int height () const { return h / 3; }
        int length () const { return l / 3; }
        int volume () const { return width() * height () * length (); }
        int surface_area() const { return width() * height () * 2 +
                                          width() * length () * 2 +
                                          length() * height () * 2; }
};

See it in action.
http://ideone.com/vDqEm

Edit: You don’t need the ++ operators since there shouldn’t be two +’s next to each other. Woops.