Suppose you have a programmer-defined data type Data and want to overload the

Question

Suppose you have a programmer-defined data type Data and want to overload the << operator to output your data type to the screen in the form cout << dataToPrint; and allow cascaded function calls. The first line of the function definition would be:
A) ostream& operator<<(ostream& output, const Data& dataToPrint)
B) ostream operator<<(ostream& output, const Data& dataToPrint)
C) ostream& operator<<(const Data& dataToPrint, ostream& output)
D) ostream operator<<(const Data& dataToPrint, ostream& output)

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The correct signature for overloading the << operator for outputting a user-defined data type is to return an ostream reference and take in two parameters. The first one should be an ostream reference and the second one should be a const reference to the user-defined data type being printed. Therefore, the correct choice is A. Choice B is incorrect because it does not return a reference to an ostream. Choice C is incorrect because the first parameter should be ostream, and the second one should be the user-defined data type. Choice D is incorrect because it does not return a reference to an ostream.

Suppose You Have a Programmer-Defined Data Type Data and Want