Different output format for cin/ofstream

Question

INTRODUCTION AND RELEVANT INFORMATION:

Suppose I have the following class:

class Example
{
    int m_a;
    int m_b;
    public:
    // usual stuff, omitted for brevity
    friend ostream & operator<< (ostream & os, const Example &e)
    {
        return os << m_a << m_b;
    }
};

QUESTION:

I want to keep default behavior for cin, but the following format when writing to ofstream:

m_a , m_b

MY EFFORTS TO SOLVE THIS:

I have tried searching here, but haven't found any similar question.

I have tried searching online, but still haven't found anything helpful.

I have tried to add

friend ofstream & operator<< (ofstream & ofs, const Example &e)
{ 
    return ofs << m_a << ',' << m_b;
} 

into the class, but that produced a compiler error. To be honest, this approach feels wrong, but i had to try it before coming here for help.

Answer 1

When chaining operators, all the standard << will return an ostream& reference.

Then your return ... will not work, because the value doesn't match the ofstream& return type.

Just use ostream& in your user defined operator<<, and it should work.