ostream cout and char *

Question

I have an array of chars like this one:

char arr[3]="hi";
cout << arr;// this will print out hi

So is the operator<< has an overloaded version that takes an ostream object and char *. so cout<<arr; first arr will decays to a chat * . and then operator<<() will print out what the char pointer is pointing to until it find a null-character ?

The same question for cin>>arr; how does it work with operator>> that takes an array as the second operand.

Answer 1

Your ostream and istream do have operator<< and operator>> overloaded to take a char*, and arrays decay into pointers to the first element. So, yes it does what you say it does.

Answer 2

Exactly in the same way as cout works.

The array arr decays into pointer type, and there exists an overloaded version of istream as well which takes char* as argument. So arr gets passed to the operator>> as char* after decaying.

Answer 3

Please see here for details on cout: Standard output stream. Whilst in this page, please click and see the link that says "ostream::operator<<" Likewise see here for details on cin: Standard input stream. Whilst here, please click and see the link that says "operator (>>)"