with operator overloading | a + b * c |
without operator overloading | our_new_type_add (a, our_new_type_multiply (b,c)) |
Only in case when operators can be called implicitly they are of some use other than aesthetics. This is the case with Ruby operator to_s, which returns a string representation of an object and with operators in PostgreSQL, where mathematical transformations can be defined on operators and PostgreSQL may use many optimalizations to expressions that use them.
Operator overloading has been criticised because it allows programmers to give operators completely different functionality depending on the types of their operands. C++'s usage of the "<<" operator is a particularly bad example: The expression
a << 1will return two times the value of a if a is an integer variable, but if a is an output stream instead this will write "1" into it.
Please add more languages to this list
Languages that support operator overloading and declaring new operators: PostgreSQL version of SQL, Ruby, Haskell
Languages that support operator overloading: Ada, C++, C#, D, Delphi , Python
Languages that don't support operator overloading: C, Pascal, Java, Visual Basic
Search Encyclopedia
|
Featured Article
|