Input/Output Operator Overloading in C++
What is Input/Output operator overloading in C++?
In C++, stream insertion operator “<< ” is used for output and stream extraction operator “>>” is used for input. The stream insertion and stream extraction operators also can be overloaded to perform input and output
Operator overloading is a type of polymorphism in which an operator is overloaded to give user defined meaning to it. Overloaded operator is used to perform operation on user-defined data type. In this article we will learn more about input/output operator overloading in C++. You can read more about operator overloading by clicking the button below.
Input/Output Operator Overloading in C++
As we know that cout is an object of ostream class and cin is an object istream class and it is important to make operator overloading function, a friend of the class because it would be called without creating an object i.e. the operators must be overloaded as a global function.
To call ‘<<‘ and ‘>>’ operator, we must call it like, ‘cout << obj1’ and ‘cin >> obj1’. So if we want to make them a member method, then they must be made members of ostream and istream classes, which is not a good option most of the time.
Therefore, these operators are overloaded as global functions with two parameters, cout and object of user defined class.
C++ program to show Input/Output Operator Overloading
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
class Length
{
private:
int kmeter;
int meter;
public:
//default constructor.
Length()
{
kmeter = 0;
meter = 0;
}
Length(int km, int m)//overloaded constructor.
{
kmeter = km;
meter = m;
}
//overloading '<<' operator.
friend ostream &operator<<( ostream &output, const Length &l )
{
output <<l.kmeter<< "Km "<<l.meter<<"M" ;
return output;
}
//overloading '>>' operator.
friend istream &operator>>( istream &input, Length &l )
{
input >> l.kmeter >> l.meter;
return input;
}
};
int main() {
Length l1(1, 112), l2;
cout << "Enter the value: " << endl; cin >> l2;
cout << "First length: " << l1 << endl;
cout << "Second length: " << l2 << endl;
return 0;
}Enter the value: 2 21 First length : 1Km 112M Second length :2Km 21M
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