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Steve Ward · Guest

I have a design question about 3 (non-assignment) member operators in
the bitset class (23.3.5).

Why are operator~, operator<<, and operator>> defined as member
operators when they could be (perhaps better) defined as non-member
operators? Are there any consequences if they were non-members?

It seems like they should be more similar to how non-members
operator&, operator|, and operator^ are defined (which all rely on
their respective assignment operators).

Or maybe the question can be turned around to ask why aren't
operator&, operator|, and operator^ members of bitset.

I'm asking this because I'm making my own implementation of the bitset
class.

member operators:
operator~ utilizes member flip
operator<< utilizes member operator<<=
operator>> utilizes member operator>>=

non-member operators:
operator& utilizes member operator&=
operator| utilizes member operator|=
operator^ utilizes member operator^=

Steve Ward

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