Making a user-defined class std::to_string(able)

Question

I know it seems too much Java or C#. However, is it possible/good/wise to make my own class valid as an input for the function std::to_string ? Example:

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Answer 1

You probably just want to overload operator<<() something like:

std::ostream& operator << ( std::ostream& os, const my_class& rhs ) {
    os << "I am " << rhs.i;
    return os;
}

Alternatively:

std::ostream& operator << ( std::ostream& os, const my_class& rhs ) {
    os << rhs.print_a_string();
    return os;
}

Then you can simply do:

int main() {
    my_class my_object;
    std::cout << my_object;

    return 0;
}