How to Use Operator Overloading in Rust (Add, Mul, etc.)

You overload operators in Rust by implementing specific traits from std::ops for your custom type.

use std::ops::Add;

struct Point { x: i32, y: i32 }

impl Add for Point {
    type Output = Point;

    fn add(self, other: Point) -> Point {
        Point { x: self.x + other.x, y: self.y + other.y }
    }
}

fn main() {
    let p1 = Point { x: 1, y: 2 };
    let p2 = Point { x: 3, y: 4 };
    let p3 = p1 + p2; // Uses the Add trait implementation
    println!("{}", p3.x + p3.y); // Prints 10
}

Replace Add with Mul, Sub, Div, or other traits in std::ops to overload different operators.

Operator overloading lets you define how symbols like + or * work with your own custom data types. Instead of writing a function like add_points(), you can simply write point1 + point2 because you told the compiler exactly what that means for your type. It's like teaching the computer a new rule for a specific game piece so it behaves naturally in math expressions.