title: >> and << operator overloading
body: <p>I just did a quiz for my programming class and got this question wrong:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>The return type of the function to
    overload the operator <code>&lt;&lt;</code> must be a
    reference to an ostream object.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>This does not seem right at all to me. Surely C++ is a bit more open ended than this. But I thought I'd ask here anyway. How is this right (or wrong)? My C++ knowledge begins to really fade when it comes to operator overloading.. </p>