c++ - 'friend' functions and << operator overloading: What is the proper way to overload an operator for a class?

Question

In a project I'm working on, I have a Score class, defined below in score.h. I am trying to overload it so, when a << operation is performed on it, _points + " " + _name is printed.

Here's what I tried to do:

ostream & Score::operator<< (ostream & os, Score right)
{
    os << right.getPoints() << " " << right.scoreGetName();
    return os;
}

Here are the errors returned:

score.h(30) : error C2804: binary 'operator <<' has too many parameters

(This error appears 4 times, actually)

I managed to get it working by declaring the overload as a friend function:

friend ostream & operator<< (ostream & os, Score right);

And removing the Score:: from the function declaration in score.cpp (effectively not declaring it as a member).

Why does this work, yet the former piece of code doesn't?

Thanks for your time!

EDIT

I deleted all mentions to the overload on the header file... yet I get the following (and only) error. binary '<<' : no operator found which takes a right-hand operand of type 'Score' (or there is no acceptable conversion) How come my test, in main(), can't find the appropriate overload? (it's not the includes, I checked)

Below is the full score.h

#ifndef SCORE_H_
#define SCORE_H_

#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <iostream>

using std::string;
using std::ostream;

class Score
{

public:
    Score(string name);
    Score();
    virtual ~Score();
    void addPoints(int n);
    string scoreGetName() const;
    int getPoints() const;
    void scoreSetName(string name);
    bool operator>(const Score right) const;

private:
    string _name;
    int _points;

};
#endif

Answer 1

Note: You might want to look at the operator overloading FAQ.

---

Binary operators can either be members of their left-hand argument's class or free functions. (Some operators, like assignment, must be members.) Since the stream operators' left-hand argument is a stream, stream operators either have to be members of the stream class or free functions. The canonical way to implement operator<< for any type is this:

std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& os, const T& obj)
{
   // stream obj's data into os
   return os;
}

Note that it is not a member function. Also note that it takes the object to stream per const reference. That's because you don't want to copy the object in order to stream it and you don't want the streaming to alter it either.

---

Sometimes you want to stream objects whose internals are not accessible through their class' public interface, so the operator can't get at them. Then you have two choices: Either put a public member into the class which does the streaming

class T {
  public:
    void stream_to(std::ostream&) const {os << obj.data_;}
  private:
    int data_;
};

and call that from the operator:

inline std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& os, const T& obj)
{
   obj.stream_to(os);
   return os;
}

or make the operator a friend

class T {
  public:
    friend std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream&, const T&);
  private:
    int data_;
};

so that it can access the class' private parts:

inline std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& os, const T& obj)
{
   os << obj.data_;
   return os;
}