Overloading the QDataStream << and>> operators for a user-defined type

Question

I have a an object I\'d like to be able to read and write to/from a QDataStream. The header is as follows:

class Compound
{
public:
    Compound(QString, QPi         


        

Answer 1

If you want to overload the "extract" operator >>, your signature must be:

QDataStream & operator >> (QDataStream & in, MyClass & class);

Hope it helps.

Answer 2

I think you've answered your own question! The stream operator

QDataStream& operator<<( QDataStream&, const Compound& )

will work fine. In the implementation you just use the existing stream operators on QDataStream to serialise the individual bits of your Compound. Some Qt classes define non-member QDataStream operators too. QString is one and so is QList so it looks like you're sorted!