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As per The Complete reference C++ books, if we are planning to use an "user defined type" in an STL class like vector<MyType>, we need to atleast override the operator < () and operator == ().
1. Is it true? If yes, reason to override operator < () and operator ==().
2. Do we need to define these as member functions or global functions:
bool operator < (MyType first, MyType second) //global func()
bool operator < (MyType &rhs) //member func()
No, it is not strictly necessary to define comparison operators (== or <) for a user defined type that you will place in a container. It is necessary if you want to do certain things to that container, such as sorting it or searching for particular values. Or if you want to retrieve elements from the container and compare their value with something else.
It is necessary to provide functional assignment operators, default and copy constructors, and destructors (and possible one or two other things that escape my memory right now). Beyond that, different containers may require support of some additional operations - for some particular containers (eg maps) which find values using keys, it is necessary to be able to compare keys.
If you supply the comparison operations, either of the two forms (member or global function) are acceptable. The only requirement is avoiding ambiguity .... the compiler will get upset if you provide both forms, as it has no basis for deciding which one to use. Generally comparison operators should not modify their operands, so their specification should make liberal use of the const keyword.
Thanks I'll take your word on it !!!!
By the way, you probably mean "overload" rather than "override" here because "override" is typically used with respect to the override of a virtual function in a base class by a virtual function with the same name, signature and covariant return type in a derived class.