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overload arithmetic operators (Read 1576 times)
mflux
overload arithmetic operators
May 20th, 2005, 8:37pm  
I'm not sure quite how to word this, so I'll give an example.

I'm writing my own vector class (again), but this time I want to give them the ability to do something like this in code:

vec3 = vec1 + vec2

instead of writing

vec3=vec1.add(vec2)

Each "vec" is of a vector class that I define. Is it possible in Java to write arithmetic operators for your own class type? I don't even know how to begin searching on google for this.

Thanks!


edit:
Okay I did some more digging. Apparently it's not supported natively by Java, however some humans have written a preprocessor that take care of this called Jfront:
http://www.winternet.com/~gginc/jfront/

I wonder if processing could have something like this in the future?
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gll
Re: overload arithmetic operators
Reply #1 - May 24th, 2005, 11:38pm  
Comming from POVray, I feel the same problem. With an intense use of vectors classes, I tried many ways to rewrite my vector3D class. I didn't found any way to bypass this (as in your example).

With this form vec3=vec1.add(vec2), it become rapidly unreadable or I feel that I've to think backward. I get lost. I guess that with overloads, it will be much more easier to work with vectors.

I still have this problem. I didn't found any way to do it or to do something similar in Java. Working with overloads is not permitted in the purist programming form. To bypass this, I was thinking to write my own geometric pseudo language in a separate .txt file. An unelegant way to do things I guess.
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the_koriner
Re: overload arithmetic operators
Reply #2 - May 25th, 2005, 12:58am  
I was just wondering yesterday if it's possible to overload operators in processing... would be very nice Smiley
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fry
Re: overload arithmetic operators
Reply #3 - May 25th, 2005, 3:14am  
yeah, would be nice, though probably not something we'll get to before 1.0, since it involves a good bit of preprocessor/compiler code to get it to behave properly.
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