Overloading the << Operator for Your Own Classes

Output streams use the insertion (<<) operator for standard types. You can also overload the << operator for your own classes.

Example

The write function example showed the use of a Date structure. A date is an ideal candidate for a C++ class in which the data members (month, day, and year) are hidden from view. An output stream is the logical destination for displaying such a structure. This code displays a date using the cout object:

Date dt( 1, 2, 92 );cout << dt;

To get cout to accept a Date object after the insertion operator, overload the insertion operator to recognize an ostream object on the left and a Date on the right. The overloaded << operator function must then be declared as a friend of class Date so it can access the private data within a Date object.

// overload_date.cpp// compile with: /EHsc#include <iostream>using namespace std;class Date{    int mo, da, yr;public:    Date(int m, int d, int y)    {        mo = m; da = d; yr = y;    }    friend ostream& operator<<(ostream& os, const Date& dt);};ostream& operator<<(ostream& os, const Date& dt){    os << dt.mo << '/' << dt.da << '/' << dt.yr;    return os;}int main(){    Date dt(5, 6, 92);    cout << dt;}

5/6/92

Remarks

The overloaded operator returns a reference to the original ostream object, which means you can combine insertions:

cout << "The date is" << dt << flush;

See Also

Reference

Output Streams