Need a little help

[Hambone]

I am working through a book on c++.

I copied this code out of the book but I am getting an issue on the line containing the operator overloading function prototype. Any help as to why I am having issues would be helpful. I copied it right out of the book.

 class Critter
{
public:
    Critter(const string& name = "", int age = 0);  //constrcutor protype
    ~Critter(); //deconstructor prototype  NEW
    Critter(const Critter& c); //copy constructor protoype NEW
    Critter& Critter::operator=(const Critter& c);
    void Greet() const;

private:
    string* m_pName;
    int m_age;
};

Critter::Critter(const string& name, int age)
{
    cout << "Constructor called\n";
    m_pName = new string(name);
    m_age = age;
}

Critter::~Critter()
{
    cout << "Destructor called!\n";
    delete m_pName;

}

Critter::Critter(const Critter& c)   //Copy constructor definition
{
    cout << "Copy constructor called\n";
    m_pName = new string(*(c.m_pName));
    m_age = c.m_age;
}

Critter& Critter::operator=(const Critter& c)
{
    cout << "Overloaded assignment operator called!\n";
    if (this != &c)
    {
        delete m_pName;
        m_pName = new string (*(c.m_pName));
        m_age = c.m_age;
    }

    return *this;  //very new stuff
}

void Critter::Greet() const
{
    cout << "I'm " << *m_pName << " and I'm" << m_age << " years old.\n";
    cout << "&m_pName: " << cout << &m_pName << endl;
}

//Global function prototypes
void testDestructor();
void testCopyConstructor(Critter aCopy);
void testAssignmentOp();

int main()
{
    testDestructor();
    cout << endl;

    Critter crit("Poochie", 5);
    crit.Greet();
    testCopyConstructor(crit);
    crit.Greet();
    cout << endl;

    testAssignmentOp();

    return 0;
}

void testDestructor()
{
    Critter toDestroy("Rover", 3);
    toDestroy.Greet();
}

void testCopyConstructor(Critter aCopy)
{
    aCopy.Greet();
}

void testAssignmentOp()
{
    Critter crit1("crit1", 7);
    Critter crit2("crit2", 9);
    crit1 = crit2;
    crit1.Greet();
    cout << endl;

    Critter crit3("crit", 11);
    crit3 = crit3;
    crit3.Greet();
}

[Hertz]

Can you post what the error says?

[vlad from moscow]

There must be

Critter& operator=(const Critter& c);

in the class definition instead of

Critter& Critter::operator=(const Critter& c);

[Hambone]

Well, then I guess the book was wrong? Because I was thinking that! The error said something along the lines of extra declaration of critter. I think I hate operator overloading stuff. It is not explained very well in this book. ha