Operator overload of class wrapped in smart pointers

Question

I've been trying to make some operator overloads (* and +) on a class which is wrapped in smart pointers.

auto p = std::make_unique<Polynomial<T>>();

When I try to overload it using normal overloading, it obviously asks for the smart pointer types.

Edit, so:

std::unique_ptr<Polynomial<T>> operator+(const std::unique_ptr<Polynomial<T>>& right);

template<class T>std::unique_ptr<Polynomial<T>> Polynomial<T>::operator+(const std::unique_ptr<Polynomial<T>>& right) {
    //Do stuff
}

And the error:

So how do you go about overloading the normal operators when the class is encapsulated in a smartpointer?

Answer 1

Don't.

Run those operations on the pointees, not on the pointers:

*p = *p + *p

It would be very confusing for users of your code if suddenly pointers had completely different and unexpected semantics.

It would be confusing for you, too.