How to define a static operator<<?

Question

Is it possible to define a static insertion operator which operates on the static members of a class only? Something like:

class MyClass
{
public:
    static         


        

Answer 1

What I would probably do in your situation, is create another class that overloads the operator<<, then make a static member of that type. Like this:

class MyClass
{
public:
    static std::string msg;

    struct Out {
        Out & operator<< (const std::string& token) {
            MyClass::msg.append(token);
            return *this;
        }
    };

    static Out out;    
};

Using it is not quite what you asked for, but close enough I think:

MyClass::out << "message1" << "message2";