So are you saying that operator overloading in C++/CLI for the ==
operator becomes equivalent to a ref class overloading the
Object::Equals method ?

Or is it that a ref class providing an overload for the Objecct::Equals
method now has that called when a C++/CLI programmer uses the == operator ?

Thanks ! That will always works.

However operator overloading in C++/CLI has me a bit confused. Does
C++/CLI operator overloading relate to any .NET framework virtual member
functions that can be called from other .NET languages ? if so which
operator oveloads and which member functions.

In general I have found the documentation for clr class operator
overloading in MSDN for C++/CLI to be sparse to the extreme and
explaining almost nothing. There is a single topic page which I can find
which has no explanation how C++/CLI relates to .net member functions.
Have I missed a more profuse explanation of this somewhere in the MSDN
documentation for C++/CLI ?

Sorry, I was quite tired when I wrote this. That's why I confused some
things here. (At least I was the only one to find it out :-).)

By default, operator == works on reference types like
Object::ReferenceEquals, however types can override operator ==.
In C++/CLI and C#, operator == NEVER maps to Object::Equals.

Here is an app that shows how it works:

// eqt.cpp
// compile with "CL /clr:safe eqt.cpp"

using namespace System;

ref class ClassWithEquals
{
 int i;
public:
 ClassWithEquals(int i) : i(i) {}

 virtual bool Equals(Object^ o) override
 {
   if (o == nullptr)
     return false;

   ClassWithEquals^ that = dynamic_cast<ClassWithEquals^>(o);
   if (that == nullptr)
     return false;

   return this->i = that->i;
 }
};

ref class ClassWithEqualityOperator
{
 int i;
public:
 ClassWithEqualityOperator(int i) : i(i) {}

 bool operator==(ClassWithEqualityOperator^ that)
 {
   if (that == (Object^)nullptr)
     return false;

   return this->i == that->i;
 }
};

int main()
{
 ClassWithEquals^ cwe1 = gcnew ClassWithEquals(1);
 ClassWithEquals^ cwe2 = gcnew ClassWithEquals(1);

 if (cwe1 == cwe2)
   Console::WriteLine("cwe1 == cwe2");

 ClassWithEqualityOperator^ cwoe1 = gcnew ClassWithEqualityOperator(1);
 ClassWithEqualityOperator^ cwoe2 = gcnew ClassWithEqualityOperator(1);

 if (cwoe1 == cwoe2)
   Console::WriteLine("cwoe1 == cwoe2");
}

If o