Overloading "<" operator

[penny9key]

Hey guys I have this class of books that has two strings and I want to overload the "<" so that it checks firstly the book names and then the book authors

String _author
String _bookname


the thing is i have no idea how the eqution would look like but im pretty sure I should use ".compare"

Thanks!

[ne555]

Get a deck of cards.
Sort it according to the suit (clubs, hearts, spades, diamonds) and value (A to K)
Understand what you did
Translate that knowledge

[penny9key]

so it goes something like this:

if(_author.compare(other._author)!=0){
{
  return _author<other._author;
}
    else if(_bookname.compare(other._bookname))!=0)
   {
        return _bookname<other._bookname;
   }
else return false;
}

Im not sure its the right way to behave tho

I tried this and seems to be working, but is this correct usage...

if(_surname.compare(o._surname)!=0){
  return true;
}
else if(_name.compare(o._name)!=0)
   {
        return true;
   }
	else return false;

[mukomo]

Hmm... for overloading the < operator, it seems that the second code snippet is actually incorrect, simply because it's possible that _surname>o._surname. Same with name. It would be easily fixed by changing !=0 to <0.

Also, when you want to overload the < operator, how are you defining a<b?

[penny9key]

im looking for same for same autho and then if they mismatch ie not eual since im comparing strings i go to the next one and check if they mismatch etc