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ccomplex-numbers

Can I sum algebraically in C a complex numbers structure?

Im trying to create a complex numbers library in C by using a typedef of an structure.

typedef struct{
     double real;
     double imag;
}complex_t;

However I'm curious whether if it's plausible to use this definition to do some computations using the '+' and '*' sign to operate complex numbers, instead of creating a complex_t sum(complex_t z,complex_t w) or complex_t prod(complex_t z,complex_t w) . I want to do something like this : 

#include<complex_library.h>

complex_t z1,z_2,w_1,w_2;
z_1 = newComplex(1,2);
z_2 = newComplex(-3,-4);

w_1 = z_1 + z_2;
w_2 = z_1 * z_2;

Thanks.

Solution

  • I'm almost ashamed to post this as an answer, but it is a valid question and every question deserves an answer.

    I'm curious whether if it's plausible to use this definition to do some computations using the '+' and '*'

    No, it is not possible to do. C simply does not support operator overloading. C++ supports this, but not C.

    Sidenote: Avoid using the _t suffix. It's reserved in POSIX. Sure, it's not reserved in the C standard but POSIX is pretty big.

    Names that end with ‘_t’ are reserved for additional type names.

    https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Reserved-Names.html