C++ offers a powerful capability to programmers in the form of operators that can be overloaded, as evidenced by code like:
| code: |
std::cout << "hello world" << std::endl; |
Where the operator overloading looks like:
| code: |
std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream&, const std::string&); |
This means we can write similar code to let any type of data fit on the other side of that << operator. The advantage of this approach is flexibility. If you're just using a print() function which sends the data to std::cout, then you'd have to create a new function to output to a different destination.
By overloading the operator you can output to any output stream, including files, since std::ofstream is a child of std::ostream.
Any questions?
