why are friends used?

[unregistered]

in overloading operators when set and get can be used in its place other than for performance reasons?

[guestgulkan]

I think you miss the point of operator overloading.

[unregistered]

can you share some light as to why that is the case?

[guestgulkan]

I was thinking in my mind, if given any class, say for example:

class MyClass
{
    int a;
    double b;
};

how awkward it would be to add two objects of MyClass together using get and set
functions - rather than using function overloading and saying

MyClass a,b,c;
c = a+b

or something like:

MyClass a,b,c,d,e,f,g;
MyClass m = a+b+c+d+e+f+g

Or maybe I misunderstand the question. Maybe you can give an example using set and get functions.

[firedraco]

I think he meant something like:

Obj& operator+ (const Obj& o1, const Obj& o2) {
    return Obj(o1.a()+o2.a());
}

Instead of friending the operator+ and just doing something like:

Obj& operator+ (const Obj& o1, const Obj& o2) {
    return Obj(o1._a+o2._a);
}

[Abramus]

Providing a get/set methods for a class is usually a bad idea:

http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/friends.html#faq-14.2

I just consider an overloaded global operator to be a member of a class. With this assumption, why not make it a friend and access members of the class directly?