Search code examples
c++inheritancepolymorphismoperator-overloading

overloading '<<' with inheritance and polymorphism?


The following is a rough sample of what the code looks like, the question is how can I have DerivedOne and DerivedTwo have a overloaded << operator but store these objects in a vector of Base*.

As for what I want to achieve; I want to be able to loop through the objects vector and output the information that I tell it to in the DerivedOne and DerivedTwo.

vector<Base*> objects;

class Base
{
 private:
 object Data
 public:
 object getData() { return Data; }
};

class DerivedOne : public Base
{
}

class DerivedTwo : public Base
{
}

Now I know there is this, but it wont work for my purposes.

friend ostream &operator<<(ostream &stream, Object object)
{
    return stream << "Test" << endl;
}

Solution

  • Make your virtual methods private to separate how an object is used from how its behavior can be customized by derived classes.

    Here's a similar to other answers solution but the virtual method is private:

    #include <iostream>
    
    namespace {
      class Base {
        // private (there is no need to call it in subclasses)
        virtual std::ostream& doprint(std::ostream&) const = 0;
      public:
        friend std::ostream& operator << (std::ostream& os, const Base& b) {
          return b.doprint(os); // polymorphic print via reference
        }
    
        virtual ~Base() {} // allow polymorphic delete
      };
    
    
      class DerivedOne : public Base {
        std::ostream& doprint(std::ostream& os) const {
          return os << "One";
        }
      public:
        DerivedOne() { std::cerr << "hi " << *this << "\n"; } // use << inside class
        ~DerivedOne() { std::cerr << "bye " << *this << "\n"; }
      };
    }
    

    Example

    #include <memory>
    #include <vector>
    
    int main () {
      using namespace std;
      // wrap Base* with shared_ptr<> to put it in a vector
      vector<shared_ptr<Base>> v{ make_shared<DerivedOne>() };
      for (auto i: v) cout << *i << " ";
      cout << endl;
    }
    

    Output

    hi One
    One 
    bye One