Programming Forums - Cout Problem

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Is
cout.operator<<("Factorial of :");
same as
cout << "Factorial of:" ;
I have searched google and checked books and all of them say it is but when i run the same code the former code gives me the address of the string.

Re: Cout Problem

>I have searched google and checked books and all of them say it is
They're wrong. cout<<"blah" is a non-member function that's defined to work with C-style strings:

template <typename T, typename Traits>
basic_ostream<T, Traits>& operator<< (
  basic_ostream<T, Traits>& out, const char *s )
{
  // Magic
}

There's no equivalent member function in basic_ostream. The closest you'll get is an overloaded operator that takes a pointer to void:

T& operator<< ( const void *p )
{
  // Magic
}

That's why the member function gives you a number (it treats the string as a pointer) and the non-member function works like you'd expect.