Addition of Matrix in C++

Question

The following code gives me the wrong output. actually, it is not doing sum, it actually copies the 2nd object to the M3 object instead of calculating the sum. I think I have some logical errors in + operator overloading. Does anybody have any idea or any other suggestion? it displays the output actually which is called in the copy constructor function cout<data[r][c]<<"\t";. but it did not display output when I use M3.displayData(). #include

#include <string.h>
using namespace std;

class Matrix{
    private:
        int noOfRows;
        int noOfColumns;
        int **data;
    public:
        Matrix(int noOfRows, int noOfColumns);
        void displayData();
        ~Matrix();
        Matrix (const Matrix &ref);
        Matrix operator + (Matrix m);
        Matrix& operator=(Matrix m) { 
        std::swap(m.noOfRows, noOfRows); 
        std::swap(m.noOfColumns, noOfColumns); 
        std::swap(m.data, data); 
        return *this; }
};

Matrix::Matrix(int inr=0, int inc=0){
    noOfRows=inr; noOfColumns=inc;
    data=new int*[noOfColumns];
    for(int i=0;i<noOfRows;i++)
        data[i]=new int[noOfColumns];
    int d;
    for(int r=0;r<noOfRows;r++){
        for(int c=0;c<noOfColumns;c++){
            cout<<"Enter ...";cin>>d;
            data[r][c]=d;
        }
        cout<<endl;
    }
}

Matrix::Matrix (const Matrix &ref){
    this->data=new int*[ref.noOfColumns];
    for(int i=0;i<ref.noOfRows;i++)
        this->data[i]=new int[ref.noOfRows];
    
    for(int r=0;r<ref.noOfRows;r++){
        for(int c=0;c<ref.noOfColumns;c++){
            this->data[r][c]=ref.data[r][c];
            cout<<this->data[r][c]<<"\t";
        }
        cout<<endl;
    }
}

Matrix Matrix::operator + (Matrix m){
    Matrix ms(m.noOfRows,m.noOfColumns);
    ms=0;
    for (int i=0; i<m.noOfRows; i++) 
        for (int j=0; j<m.noOfColumns; j++){
        ms.data[i][j] = data[i][j]+m.data[i][j];
        return ms;
        } 
    }

void Matrix::displayData(){
    for(int r=0;r<noOfRows;r++){
        for(int c=0;c<noOfColumns;c++)
            cout<<data[r][c]<<"\t";
        cout<<endl;
    }
}

Matrix::~Matrix(){
    delete[] data;
}

int main(){
    Matrix M1(2,2),M2(2,2);
    cout<<"\n Matrix A="<<endl;
    M1.displayData();
    cout<<"\n Matrix B="<<endl;
    M2.displayData();
    cout<<"\n Sum of Matrix="<<endl;
    Matrix M3=M1+M2;
    M3.displayData();
    return 0;
}

Answer 1

There are at least four issues with your code:

1. The Matrix copy constructor fails to copy the noOfRows and noOfColumns values.

2. You erroneously allocated the row pointers by using noOfColumns as the number of rows.

3. In the Matrix operator + , you are returning the Matrix inside the for loop, when you should be returning it after the loop is completed.

4. Your destructor fails to delete[] all the row and column data.

To fix the first two issues, since there is a lot of common code between the Matrix default constructor and the copy constructor, you could create an Allocate member function to allocate the memory:

class Matrix
{
    private:
       void Allocate();
    //... other members
    public:
        Matrix operator + (const Matrix& m);
    // other members...
};

Matrix::Matrix(int inr=0, int inc=0) : noOfRows(inr), noOfColumns(inc)
{
    Allocate();
    // Input code removed...
}

Matrix::Matrix (const Matrix &ref) : noOfRows(ref.noOfRows), noOfColumns(ref.noOfColumns)
{
    Allocate();
    for(int r=0; r < ref.noOfRows; r++)
    {
        for(int c=0; c < ref.noOfColumns; c++)
            data[r][c] = ref.data[r][c];
    }
}

void Matrix::Allocate()
{
    data=new int*[noOfRows];
    for(int i=0;i < noOfRows; i++)
        data[i]=new int[noOfColumns]();
}

For operator + , you should pass the Matrix by const reference, not by value (this is in addition to fixing the mistake of returning the Matrix prematurely):

Matrix Matrix::operator + (const Matrix& m)
{
    Matrix ms(m.noOfRows,m.noOfColumns);
    for (int i=0; i<m.noOfRows; i++) 
    { 
        for (int j=0; j<m.noOfColumns; j++)
            ms.data[i][j] = data[i][j]+m.data[i][j];
    }
    return ms;
}

The last issue (the destructor) only removes the row pointers, but does not remove the data allocated for each row. The fix is below:

Matrix::~Matrix()
{
    for (int i = 0; i < noOfRows; ++i)
        delete[] data[i];
    delete [] data;
}

---

Other issues:

1. Put more space between operators. Your current code squishes everything together, making it hard to read. For example:

for(int c=0;c<ref.noOfColumns;c++) could be: for (int c=0; c < ref.noOfColumns; c++)

2. Excessive and unnecessary usage of this-> .

3. If Matrix::operator + exists, it makes sense for Matrix::operator += to also exist. For the latter, operator + would simply be implemented in terms of operator += , making operator + one or two lines of code.

4. A probably better method of allocating the memory is illustrated by this answer , since only two allocations are done, the memory allocated is contiguous, and less memory fragmentation will occur.