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VB.Net program to overload equal to (=) and not equal to (<>) operators

Here, we are going to learn how to overload equal to (=) and not equal to (<>) operators in VB.Net?
Submitted by Nidhi, on January 02, 2021 [Last updated : March 06, 2023]

Overloading equal to (=) and not equal to (<>) operators in VB.Net

Here, we will overload equal to (=) and not equal to (<>) operators using the shared operator method, which is used to perform comparations on the object of the class.

Program/Source Code:

The source code to overload equal to (=) and not equal to (<>) operators is given below. The given program is compiled and executed successfully.

VB.Net code to overload equal to (=) and not equal to (<>) operators

'VB.net program to overload equal to (=) and 
'not equal to (<>) operator

Class Sample
    Dim num As Integer
    Sub SetValues(ByVal n As Integer)
        num = n
    End Sub

    Public Shared Operator =(ByVal S1 As Sample, ByVal S2 As Sample) As Boolean
        If (S1.num = S2.num) Then
            Return True
        Else
            Return False
        End If
    End Operator
    Public Shared Operator <>(ByVal S1 As Sample, ByVal S2 As Sample) As Boolean
        If (S1.num <> S2.num) Then
            Return True
        Else
            Return False
        End If
    End Operator

    Sub PrintValues()
        Console.WriteLine("Num: {0}", num)
    End Sub
End Class

Module Module1
    Sub Main()
        Dim obj1 As New Sample()
        Dim obj2 As New Sample()

        obj1.SetValues(10)
        obj2.SetValues(10)

        If (obj1 = obj2) Then
            Console.WriteLine("Obj1 is equal to Obj2")
        Else
            Console.WriteLine("Obj1 is not equal to Obj2")
        End If

        obj1.SetValues(30)
        obj2.SetValues(20)

        If (obj1 <> obj2) Then
            Console.WriteLine("Obj1 is not equal to Obj2")
        Else
            Console.WriteLine("Obj1 is equal to Obj2")
        End If
    End Sub
End Module

Output:

Obj1 is equal to Obj2
Obj1 is not equal to Obj2
Press any key to continue . . .

Explanation:

In the above program, we created a class Sample that contains two methods SetValues(), PrintValues() to set and print the values of data members of the class. Here, we also implemented methods to overload equal to (=) and not equal to (<>) operator, then we can perform comparation on objects.

After that, we created a module Module1 that contains the Main() method, the Main() method is the entry point for the program. Here, we created the two objects of Sample class and set the value of data member using SetValues() method and then perform comparation on objects. After that appropriate message will be printed on the console screen.

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