"cout"ing an object

[SolarBear]

Say I have an object of some class with a few members and methods. Apart from the obvious DisplayObject() method, is there any way of using a simple cout <<MyObject ?

In Python, I'd define a __str__() method inside my class, but I have no clue how to achieve that in C++.

[php_brian]

The only way I can think of to display information about the object is to have method that is coded for that. There isn't a simple way to perform that operation. Maybe you could doing something by overloading the << operator, but I don't know enough about C++ to do something like that.

[little birdy]

the only way i've ever done that sort of thing is by overloading the << operator.

friend ostream& operator<<(const ostream& s, const MyObject& obj) {
s << obj.attribute << endl;
/* more s << ___; statements if there are more attributes to print */

return s;
}

[sans-hubris]

Originally posted by little birdy
the only way i've ever done that sort of thing is by overloading the << operator.

friend ostream& operator<<(const ostream& s, const MyObject& obj) {
s << obj.attribute << endl;
/* more s << ___; statements if there are more attributes to print */

return s;
}
That's exactly right. Operator overloading (http://cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/tut4-2.html), :smilwink: :thumbup:

[sicarius]

I know it isn't as C++ or even as efficient (memory wise), but I prefer to just declare a ToString() member function. Why?

More or less personal preference.

[gold_dragon]

Originally posted by sicarius
I know it isn't as C++ or even as efficient (memory wise), but I prefer to just declare a ToString() member function. Why?

More or less personal preference. Nothing wrong with that, I would assume that having both overloading the << and having member function would be useful to a programmer.

In Java, I don't think there is any other way besides making a member function so I would assume it would be easier to port between the two languages that way.

[sicarius]

It isn't really that either. Sometimes you just want a string to mess with instead of dumping the text to an output stream.

[SolarBear]

Thanks a lot guys.

*will need to look at operator overloading*