Why isn't operator overloading available for classes in Delphi?

Question

I've always wondered about this for a bit, but why is operator overloading not available for classes in Delphi?

I remember reading an answer once while on the run, and it said it would come in conflict with something, but I can't remember much. As far as I can tell, only the implicit operator may cause a bit of problems since classes are stored on the heap and assigning is actually a copy of the heap address (basically copying pointers).

Answer 1

Close. It's because objects are reference types and the memory is managed manually. So if you said myResult := myObject1 + myObject2 + myObject3;, you'd have to create an intermediate object somewhere in there, and there's no code to free it, so you get memory leaks.