14.3. Arithmetic and Relational Operators

Ordinarily, we define the arithmetic and relational operators as nonmember functions in order to allow conversions for either the left- or right-hand operand (§ 14.1, p. 555). These operators shouldn’t need to change the state of either operand, so the parameters are ordinarily references to const.

An arithmetic operator usually generates a new value that is the result of a computation on its two operands. That value is distinct from either operand and is calculated in a local variable. The operation returns a copy of this local as its result. Classes that define an arithmetic operator generally define the corresponding compound assignment operator as well. When a class has both operators, it is usually more efficient to define the arithmetic operator to use compound assignment:

// assumes that both objects refer to the same book
Sales_data
operator+(const Sales_data &lhs, const Sales_data &rhs)
{
    Sales_data sum = lhs;  // copy data members from lhs into sum
    sum += rhs;             // add rhs into sum
    return sum;
}

This definition is essentially identical to our original add function (§ 7.1.3, p. 261). We copy lhs into the local variable sum. We then use the Sales_data compound-assignment operator (which we’ll define on page 564) to add the values from rhs into sum. We end the function by returning a copy of sum.