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c++overloadingistream

Overload istream >> without return

I'm a student and quite new to c++. I created a Class Vector2D and overloaded the istream operator. I did it in the following 2 ways:

friend void operator >> (istream& is, Vector& v);

friend istream& operator >>(istream& is, Vector&v);

void operator >> (istream& is, Vector& v)
{
    is >> v.x >> v.y;
}

istream& operator >> (istream& is, Vector& v)
{
    is >> v.x >> v.y;
    return is;
}

Both ways did the same thing (for me), and I don't know why I should return a istream reference. I mean, I don't care about the istream object, I just need it to initialize my objects. What's the reason for returning it?

Solution

  • Because streaming operator can be chained, i.e., 

    std::cin >> a >> b;

    Without returning a reference, this is not possible.