Array subscript operator

You can even overload the array subscript operator [].

You should always (99.98% of the time) implement 2 versions, a const and a not-const version, because if the object is const, it should not be able to modify the object returned by [].

The arguments are passed by const& instead of by value because passing by reference is faster than by value, and const so that the operator doesn’t change the index accidentally.

The operators return by reference, because by design you can modify the object [] return, i.e:

std::vector<int> v{ 1 };
v[0] = 2; //Changes value of 1 to 2
          //wouldn't be possible if not returned by reference

You can only overload inside a class/struct:

//I is the index type, normally an int
T& operator[](const I& index)
{
    //Do something
    //return something
}

//I is the index type, normally an int
const T& operator[](const I& index) const
{
    //Do something
    //return something
}

Multiple subscript operators, [][]..., can be achieved via proxy objects. The following example of a simple row-major matrix class demonstrates this:

template<class T>
class matrix {
    // class enabling [][] overload to access matrix elements
    template <class C>
    class proxy_row_vector {
        using reference = decltype(std::declval<C>()[0]);
        using const_reference = decltype(std::declval<C const>()[0]);
    public:
        proxy_row_vector(C& _vec, std::size_t _r_ind, std::size_t _cols)
            : vec(_vec), row_index(_r_ind), cols(_cols) {}
        const_reference operator[](std::size_t _col_index) const {
            return vec[row_index*cols + _col_index];
        }
        reference operator[](std::size_t _col_index) {
            return vec[row_index*cols + _col_index];
        }
    private:
        C& vec;
        std::size_t row_index; // row index to access
        std::size_t cols; // number of columns in matrix
    };

    using const_proxy = proxy_row_vector<const std::vector<T>>;
    using proxy = proxy_row_vector<std::vector<T>>;
public:
    matrix() : mtx(), rows(0), cols(0) {}
    matrix(std::size_t _rows, std::size_t _cols)
        : mtx(_rows*_cols), rows(_rows), cols(_cols) {}

    // call operator[] followed by another [] call to access matrix elements
    const_proxy operator[](std::size_t _row_index) const {
        return const_proxy(mtx, _row_index, cols);
    }

    proxy operator[](std::size_t _row_index) {
        return proxy(mtx, _row_index, cols);
    }
private:
    std::vector<T> mtx;
    std::size_t rows;
    std::size_t cols;
};

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