Question

I have a C++ class MyObject and I want to be able to feed this data like I would to a osstream (but unlike a direct sstream, have the incoming data be formatted a special way). I can’t seem to figure out how to overload a operator for MyObject to eat input given to it.

class MyObject {
public:
    ostringstream s;
    FEEDME
};


int main() {
     MyObject obj;
     obj.FEEDME << "Hello" << 12345;

     // I want obj.s == ":Hello::12345:"

}

I want it so every item fed in be surrounded by : :

So in the given example, s = “:Hello::12345” should be the final outcome. What my question is, how can I tell the object that when ever a <<something, put : : around the something.

Is this possible?

Answer 1

try this:

class MyObject {
public:
    template <class T>
    MyObject &operator<<(const T &x) {
        s << ':' << x << ':';
        return *this;
    }

    std::string to_string() const { return s.str(); }

private:
    std::ostringstream s;
};

MyObject obj;
obj << "Hello" << 12345;
std::cout << obj.to_string() << std::endl;

There are certain things you won’t be able to shove into the stream, but it should work for all the basics.