Thread: 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

Code:

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

Fixed.

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.