Cocoa Programming for OS X: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide

Operator Overloading

By overloading operators you can make your own types work with common (and even uncommon) operators. This ability falls deep beyond the “with great power comes great responsibility” line. However, vectors are a natural and respectable application for this technique.

To define an operator overload you simply add a function that takes the appropriate types. To start with, instead of calling vectorByAddingVector(_:), it would be nice to use the + operator. Overload + and * for adding and scaling vectors, respectively.

s​t​r​u​c​t​ ​V​e​c​t​o​r​ ​{​
 ​ ​ ​ ​.​.​.​
}​

f​u​n​c​ ​+​(​l​e​f​t​:​ ​V​e​c​t​o​r​,​ ​r​i​g​h​t​:​ ​V​e​c​t​o​r​)​ ​-​>​ ​V​e​c​t​o​r​ ​{​
 ​ ​ ​ ​r​e​t​u​r​n​ ​l​e​f​t​.​v​e​c​t​o​r​B​y​A​d​d​i​n​g​V​e​c​t​o​r​(​r​i​g​h​t​) ...