(C++) Not sure what the problem wants me to do.

[cpponyou]

I have this HW problem, but I cannot figure out what it wants me to do. I don't want anyone to solve it for me, just point me in the right direction.

Suppose that a class hierarchy has a virtual method print

class C {
virtual void print( ostream& ) const;
};

that outputs C's members to the stream ostream. Write one overload of << so that the statement

out << p;

outputs p's members to the stream out, where p is any object that belongs to a class in the hierarchy.

What I don't understand is the out << p bit. Am I supposed to be able to do

out << p;

in my main() and have the overload call p.print() ?

 

[D H]

That is exactly what you are supposed to do.

You should probably make your overloaded function obey the semantics of the << operator as used with streams so that given two such objects p and q the following works:

out << "Members of p:\n" << p << "\nMembers of q:\n" << q;

 

[CompuChip]

Indeed. So they want you to override operator<<