Question

So I have these two overloaded operators for my Vector class, dot and cross product, I assume you cannot do this, and I should have a cross function instead.

inline T operator *(const Vector3<T> &v)
{
    return value[0]*v[0]+value[1]*v[1]+value[2]*v[2];
}

inline Vector3<T> operator *(const Vector3<T> &v)
{
    Vector3<T> result;
    result[0] = value[1]*v[2] - value[2]*v[1]; 
    result[1] = value[2]*v[0] - value[0]*v[2];
    result[2] = value[0]*v[1] - value[1]*v[0];
    return result;
}

In the off chance there is a way to do this that would be great, is it at all possible?

Answer 1

You can’t overload on return type.

You have a few choices:

• Use free functions dot(v1, v2);
• Abuse another binary operator that doesn’t make sense for your class (e.g. v1 ^ v2) as the dot or cross operator (note that the precedence may not be what you want);
• Abuse paired operators and objects to construct an appropriate syntax (e.g. v1 <dot> v2, using the < and > operators and a global dot object).