Template resolution - operator<< not found with boost-test

Question

The following code works fine:

#define BOOST_TEST_MODULE TestFoo
#include <boost/test/unit_test.hpp>
#include <boost/dynamic_bitset.hpp>
#include <string>

template <typename T>
std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& os, const std::vector<T> &v)
{
    os << "[ ";
    for ( const T& elem : v )
        os << elem << ' ';
    return os << ']';
}

typedef boost::dynamic_bitset<> BS;
static const std::vector<BS> foo = { BS(std::string("101")) };

BOOST_AUTO_TEST_CASE( test_foo )
{
    BOOST_CHECK_EQUAL( foo[0], foo[0] );
}

However, when I replace the test case with

BOOST_AUTO_TEST_CASE( test_foo )
{
    BOOST_CHECK_EQUAL( foo, foo );
}

then operator<< is no longer found by the compiler:

/usr/include/boost/test/test_tools.hpp:326:14: error: no match for ‘operator<<’ (operand types are ‘std::ostream {aka std::basic_ostream<char>}’ and ‘const std::vector<boost::dynamic_bitset<> >’)

I would expect the compiler to instantiate the operator<< template defined above. Why is this not happening / how to fix?

Answer 1

edit: see comment, this is UB - there doesn't appear to be a "good" solution to the problem.

wrap your op<< in a namespace std {...}

#include <boost/dynamic_bitset.hpp>
#include <boost/test/unit_test.hpp>

namespace std { // THIS LINE

template <typename T, typename... Rest>
std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& os, const std::vector<T, Rest...> &v)
{
    os << "[ ";
    for ( const T& elem : v )
        os << elem << ' ';
    os << ']';
    return os;
}
} // THIS LINE

typedef boost::dynamic_bitset<> BS;
static const std::vector<BS> foo = { BS(std::string("101")) };


BOOST_AUTO_TEST_CASE( test_foo )
{
    BOOST_CHECK_EQUAL( foo, foo );
}

https://godbolt.org/z/xoW-IJ

Otherwise it's not looking in the right namespace for your implementation. Pretty sure this is ADL: https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/adl