Friend problem (overloading >>/<<)

[Erdrigard]

Hiya. Trying to overload the stream insertion/extraction operators, but apparently my friend functions aren't being recognized.

It's about rectangles. Here's the header.

#ifndef rectangle_h
#define rectangle_h
#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

class rectangleType {      
      friend ostream& operator<<(ostream&, const rectangleType&);
      friend istream& operator>>(istream&, rectangleType&);
public:
//Standard rectangle stuff.  Area, perimeter, and so on.  I could supply code for these if needed.
private:
        double length;
        double width;
};

#endif 

Member definitions for rectangle.h

#include <iostream>
#include "rectangle.h"

using namespace std;

ostream& operator<<(ostream osObject, const rectangleType& rectangle) 
{
   osObject << "Length = " << rectangle.length
            << "Width = " << rectangle.width;
   
   return osObject;
}

istream& operator>>(istream isObject, rectangleType& rectangle)
{
   isObject >> rectangle.length >> rectangle.width;
   
   return isObject;
}

This is an error since width and length are private. But I thought friend functions had access to the private members of that class.

So! Can anybody tell me what I'm doing wrong with this code?

[PiMaster]

You declared the functions differently from the friend declarations. Instead of:

ostream& operator<<(ostream osObject, const rectangleType& rectangle)
istream& operator>>(istream isObject, rectangleType& rectangle)

You need:

//note that the streams are references
ostream& operator<<(ostream& osObject, const rectangleType& rectangle)
istream& operator>>(istream& isObject, rectangleType& rectangle)

Your friend declaration said that they were references, but your functions passed the object.

[AbstractionAnon]

Your delcaration and implementation do not agree.

In your declaration, istream and ostream are passed by reference.

friend ostream& operator<<(ostream&, const rectangleType&);
friend istream& operator>>(istream&, rectangleType&);

In your implementation, istream and ostream are passed by value.

ostream& operator<<(ostream osObject, const rectangleType& rectangle)
istream& operator>>(istream isObject, rectangleType& rectangle)

To the compiler, these are different functions. Therefore, the by-value functions are not recognized as friends.

[Erdrigard]

Kind of an embarrassing error, but I pretty much had to post it. Not sure I'd have spotted it. Thanks!