Overloading the ++ operator to increment an iterator

Question

I am currently creating a square list and one of the requirements is to overload the the pre- and postfix ++ operator.

I've tried to overload the ++operator in my .hpp file to increment an iterator. But when calling the ++operator it does not call the overloaded code and just uses the default.

iterator& operator ++ () {  // pre-increment 
        std::list<int>::iterator i = list_Values.begin(); 
        advance(i,1); 
        return &*i; 
    } 

    iterator operator ++ (int) { // post-increment 
        std::list<int>::iterator i = list_Values.begin(); 
        advance(i,1); 
        return &*i; 
    } 

I try to invoke the ++operator this way:

int* test = sqrList.begin();
  ++test;

  test++;

Answer 1

You have to declare the operator inside the class.

class Iterator
{
public:
    Iterator& operator ++ ()
    {
       return *this;
    }
    Iterator operator ++ (int)
    {
       return *this;
    }
};

Also, why are you using return &*i; ?

Note that these operators need to be declared inside the Iterator class, not inside the container.

Answer 2

int* test = sqrList.begin();
++test;
test++;

You're incrementing a int* , and since there's no int* class to extend, you cannot possibly have actually created operators for this type.

Create the operators for the correct type, instead. You probably mean to make your own Iterator type.

Answer 3

For novices it is sometimes hard to understand an issue out of context. So I decided to provide a more or less complete example of defining custom iterator and overloading its operators. Notice, when overloading post increment operator, we return iterator by value, not by reference. Of course, this is not a real world example, where we would not use raw pointers.

#include<iostream>
#include<assert.h>

struct node
{
    int data;
    node* next;
    node() :data(0), next(nullptr) {}
    node(int d) :data(d), next(nullptr) {}
};

//forward declaration
class MyList;

class MyListIterator
{
private:
    node* _ptr;
    friend class MyList;
    explicit MyListIterator(node* n) : _ptr(n) {}
public:
    int& operator*() const {
        return _ptr->data;
    }
    //overload pre increment operator
    MyListIterator& operator++() {
        _ptr = _ptr->next;
        return *this;
    }
    // overload post increment operator
    MyListIterator operator++(int) {
        MyListIterator ret = *this;
        ++* (this);
        return ret;
    }

    bool operator==(const MyListIterator& iter) const {
        return this->_ptr == iter._ptr;
    }

    bool operator!=(const MyListIterator& iter) const {
        return this->_ptr != iter._ptr;
    }
};

class MyList
{
private:
    node* _head;
    node* _tail;
    size_t _size;
public:
    MyList() : _head(nullptr), _tail(nullptr), _size(0) {};

    void push_back(int d) {
        node* newTail = new node(d);
        if (_tail != nullptr) {
            _tail->next = newTail;
        }
        else {
            _head = newTail;
        }
        _tail = newTail;
        _size++;
    }

    int& operator[](size_t i) {
        if (i >= _size)
            throw std::out_of_range("MyList");
        node * p = _head;
        for (size_t j = 0; j < i; j++) {
            p = p->next;
        }
        return p->data;
    }

void remove(int d) {
    if (_head == nullptr)
        return;
    node * p = _head;
    node * prev = p;
    while ((p != nullptr) && (p->data != d)) {
        prev = p;
        p = p->next;
    }
    if (p != nullptr) {
        if (p == _head)
            _head = p->next;
        else
            prev->next = p->next;
        delete p;
        _size--;
    }
}

    size_t size() const {
        return _size;
    }

    ~MyList() {
        node* next = nullptr;
        for (node* p = _head; p != nullptr; p = next) {
            next = p->next;
            delete p;
        }
    }
    using iterator = MyListIterator;
    iterator begin() { return iterator(_head); }
    iterator end() { return iterator(_tail->next); }
};

int main()
{

    MyList mylist;
    mylist.push_back(1);
    mylist.push_back(2);
    mylist.push_back(3);
    int count = 1;
    //pre increment
    for (MyListIterator it = mylist.begin(); it != mylist.end(); ++it)
        assert(*it == count++);
    count = 1;
    //post increment
    for (MyListIterator it = mylist.begin(); it != mylist.end(); it++)
        assert(*it == count++);
    for (size_t i = 0; i < 3; i++)
        assert(mylist[i] == i + 1);

    mylist.remove(2);
    assert(mylist[0] == 1);
    assert(mylist[1] == 3);
    assert(mylist.size() ==2);

    mylist.remove(1);
    mylist.remove(3);
    assert(mylist.size() == 0);

}