Re: Temporary objects and operators overloading

From:
SG <s.gesemann@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Sun, 5 Jul 2009 23:51:14 CST
Message-ID:
<209b7170-63bf-468d-b0e9-a8a30a8ae377@x3g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>
On 6 Jul., 05:15, cin <czec...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Guys,
Consider code below. I overloaded + and - operators for my class.
Theoretically everything looks fine but the code doesn't work as
expected. [...]

Is there any explanation for such behavior ?


Yes.

[...]
----- Overloading.h
class Overloading
{
        int a;
public:
        Overloading(int a);

        Overloading& operator+(Overloading& arg);
        Overloading& operator-(Overloading& arg);
};


operator+ and operator- should return a new object by value and take
their parameter(s) either by reference-to-const or by value. Also, it
is common to write operator+ and operator- in terms of += and -= as
free functions:

     class Overloading {
      [...]
        Overloading& operator+=(Overloading const& rhs)
        {
           this->a += rhs.a;
           return *this;
        }
      [...]
        friend Overloading operator+(Overloading const& lhs,
           Overloading const& rhs)
        {
           Overloading result = lhs;
           result += rhs;
           return result;
        }
     };

Since you have an implicit constructor taking an int you will be able
to write

     void foo()
     {
        Overloading a = 23;
        Overloading b = a + 42;
        Overloading c = 99 + b;
     }

without the need to declare more operator+ functions. 42 and 99 are
simply converted to Overloading and then operator+(Overloading const&,
Overloading const&) is applied.

--- Overloading.cpp
Overloading::Overloading(int arg = 0) : a(arg) {}

Overloading& Overloading::operator+(Overloading& arg) {
        return Overloading(a + arg.a);
}


Your compiler should complain about this. You return a reference to
function-local object which ceases to exist. Using this dangling
reference invokes undefined behaviour.

Cheers!
SG

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