List of Overloadable Operators in C# (C Sharp)

Operator overloading is an interesting feature of Object Oriented Programming. Operator overloading is an example of polymorphism. In general, each operator has a definite meaning.

Can you overload any operator of your choice? No. You cannot overload all the operators of C#. Only limited set of operators are eligible for overloading. They are listed below:

• Unary Operators: +, -, ++, --, ~, !, true, false
• Binary Operators: +, -, /, *, %, &, |, ^, >>, <<
• Comparison Operators: ==, !=, >, <, >=, <=

While overloading comparison operators, ensure the following:

• You should overload != operator if you overload == operator and vice versa
• You should overload > operator if you overload < operator and vice versa
• You should overload >= operator if you overload <= operator and vice versa

How can an operator be overloaded? To understand that, consider the + operator discussed in the beginning of this article. You are now going to overload this operator to operate on two class instances as shown below:

class sampleClass {
int member1;
public sampleClass(int member1) {
this.member1 = member1;
}
public static sampleClass operator +(sampleClass instance1, sampleClass instance2) {
int data1 = instance1.member1 * instance2.member1;
sampleClass instance3 = new sampleClass(data1);
return instance3;
}
public int getMember1() {
return member1;
}
}
class testClass {
public static void Main() {
sampleClass instance1 = new sampleClass(10);
sampleClass instance2 = new sampleClass(30);
sampleClass instance3 = instance1 + instance2;
int data1 = instance3.getMember1();
Console.WriteLine(“ Instance3 member value is: {0}”, data1);
}
}

Output of this code will be:

Instance3 member value is: 300

You achieved operator overloading by defining a static method using the keyword “operator” along with the operator + that has to be overloaded. Similarly, you can overload all other overloadable operators listed in this article.

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