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Asked: 2026-05-11T00:13:16+00:00

Is there a canonical or recommended pattern for implementing arithmetic operator overloading in C++

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Is there a canonical or recommended pattern for implementing arithmetic operator overloading in C++ number-like classes?

From the C++ FAQ, we have an exception-safe assignment operator that avoids most problems:

class NumberImpl;  class Number {    NumberImpl *Impl;     ... };  Number& Number::operator=(const Number &rhs) {    NumberImpl* tmp = new NumberImpl(*rhs.Impl);    delete Impl;    Impl = tmp;    return *this; }

But for other operators (+, +=, etc..) very little advice is given other than to make them behave like the operators on built-in types.

Is there a standard way of defining these? This is what I’ve come up with – are there pitfalls I’m not seeing?

// Member operator Number& Number::operator+= (const Number &rhs) {     Impl->Value += rhs.Impl->Value; // Obviously this is more complicated     return *this; }  // Non-member non-friend addition operator Number operator+(Number lhs, const Number &rhs) {      return lhs += rhs; }
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1 Answer

  1. In Bjarne Stroustrup’s book ‘The C++ Programming Language‘, in chapter 11 (the one devoted to Operator Overloading) he goes through witting a class for a complex number type (section 11.3).

    One thing I do notice from that section is that he implements mixed type operations… this is probably expected for any numeric class.

    In general, what you’ve got looks good.

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