Overload insert/extract operator

Hi all, for our lab exercises we were asked to overload both the << and >> operator for a class we made named Phone

From what our instructor has told us....

Code:

friend ostream &operator<<(ostream & out, Phone &s); 
friend istream &operator>>(istream & in, Phone &s);
//must be a non member function since it needs to access the private data

Up to that part I understand why he has said that

But I am confused as to why my compiler keeps saying
'opeartor' : references must be initialized

thus far I have only attempted the insertion operator, but I'm lost

Code:

istream &opeartor >>(istream &in, Phone &s)
{
	in >> s; 
	return in; 
}

It would be a big help if someone can direct me on how to do this?

e.g, in the driver we have

Code:

Phone phone1; 
//should be able to do
cout << phone1; 
cin >> phone1;

Please and thank you

You have misspelled the word "operator" in your code. Compilers do not attempt to correct for misspellings.

Code:

istream &operator>>(istream & in, Phone &s)
{
	in >> s.number; 
	return in; 
}

Fixed.

However, there are two more problems in the code.

>>friend ostream &operator<<(ostream & out, Phone &s);
>>friend istream &operator>>(istream & in, Phone &s);

should be

friend ostream & operator << (ostream & out, const Phone & phone);
friend istream & operator >> (const istream & in, Phone & phone);

Because some parameters aren't--and shouldn't--be changed. Thus, they should be const. Also, s is not a very good parameter name. I suggest you choose something more descriptive, such as phone. This isn't math where everything is a variable of one letter.
And the biggest problem is:

in >> s;

This will cause the call to be recursive without end. This is the operation you are trying to define. What, exactly, should happen when we try to read something into the phone? As cool_guy's code shows, you probably want to extract the phone number and store it into the phone. By doing this, you've defined the operation of reading a phone.

The header that we received in our lab was simply this

Code:

ostream &operator<<(ostream & out, Staff &s)
istream &operator>>(istream & in, Staff &s)

The parameter s, like you said not that well but what I came up with so far is this

Code:

ostream &operator<<(ostream & out, Staff &s)
{
	out << s.ID; 
	out << s.Name; 
	out << s.Department; 
	out << s.Position; 
	out << s.DateJoined; 
	out << s.Salary; 
	return out; 
}

and for in >>

Code:

istream &operator>>(istream & in, Staff &s)
{
	in >> s.ID; 
	in >> s.Name; 
	in >> s.Department; 
	in >> s.Position; 
	in >> s.DateJoined; 
	in >> s.Salary; 
	return in; 
}

Because according to our instructor, we should be able to declare a variable of type Staff in the driver and then be able to

Code:

Staff somestaff; 
cout << somestaff << endl; 
cin >> somestaff;

Is there any suggestions on how to properly format the way the user can enter the information? Any suggestions is appreciated.

Originally Posted by Elysia

should be

friend ostream & operator << (ostream & out, const Phone & phone);
friend istream & operator >> (const istream & in, Phone & phone);

Not quite. the istream cannot be const. Reading from a stream inherrently changes its state since the next read does not read the same thing, therefore that operation is not const.

He was only missing the first const on the Phone reference. I.e. You have the top one correct, he has the bottom one correct.