C++ - Subscript Operator Overloading

Subscript operator ([]), like the function-call operator, is considered a binary operator. The declaration is identical to any binary operator, with the following exception:

It can not be declared as a non-member function. It must be a non-static member function.
It should take a single argument. The argument can be of any type and designates the desired array subscript.

Example: Overloading Subscript Operator

In the below example, assignment operator (=) is overloaded. It is used to return a reference to the element at the specified position of the MyVector class.

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
 
class IntVector {
  private:
    int size;
    int *Elements;
  public:
    //class constructor
    IntVector(int i) {
      Elements = new int[i];
      size = i;
    }
    //function for overloading []
    int& operator[] (int index) {
      static int err = NULL;
      if(index >= 0 && index < size){
        return Elements[index];
      } else {
        cout<<"IndexOutOfBounds\n";
        return err;
      }
    }         
};
int main (){
  IntVector MyVector(10);
  
  for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
    MyVector[i] = (i+1)*10;
  }
 
  for(int i = 0; i < 12; i++) {
    cout<<"MyVector["<<i<<"] = "<<MyVector[i]<<"\n";
  }  
  return 0;
}

The output of the above code will be:

MyVector[0] = 10
MyVector[1] = 20
MyVector[2] = 30
MyVector[3] = 40
MyVector[4] = 50
MyVector[5] = 60
MyVector[6] = 70
MyVector[7] = 80
MyVector[8] = 90
MyVector[9] = 100
IndexOutOfBounds
MyVector[10] = -1
IndexOutOfBounds
MyVector[11] = -1

❮ C++ - Operator Overloading