C++ Notes: What values do the I/O operators (<< and >>) return?

What values do the I/O operators (<< and >>) return?

C++ allows you to define functions to associate with existing operators. The << and >> operators, whose orginal meanings were bitwise left and right shift, have additional meanings for C++ iostreams. So how do they work?

The >> and << operators are evaluated left-to-right, so the following are equivalent statements, altho writing the parentheses would be rather weird. 

cin >> a >> b >> c;
(((cin >> a) >> b) >> c);  // Same as above.
What value is produced, for example, by (cin >> a)? And I mean what value is produced in the expression, not what value is read into the variable. It calls an overloaded templated function (operator>>) in an istream class which reads input and stores it into the variable on the right. It then returns the left operand (ie, cin) so the result can be used if there is another >> operator. This chaining of the I/O operators is a rather clever solution. Here's an example program that shows this. 
    if ((cin >> a) == cin) {
        cout << "Equal" << endl;   // Yes, it is true
    } else {
        cout << "Not Equal" << endl;
    }

Why cin can be used as a truth value

It's possible to make tests like 
   if (cin)
which will be true if cin is ok and false if at an end-of-file or has encountered an error. It's type is istream& (input stream reference), so how can that be used as a truth value. The trick is that when it's evaluated in the context of a condition, eg, in an if or while statement, a special function is called in the istream class. This function returns a value that can be interpreted as true or false.

Reading in the while condition

Because the >> operator returns the iostream (eg, cin), which can be tested for EOF or errors, the cin loop idiom can be used. 

   while (cin >> x) { . . . }
which effectively tests for EOF, and also that the input is a valid value.

See also

End-Of-File (EOF)