What is "operator<<" called?

I know the names of most of the operators but not sure what operator<< and operato开发者_StackOverflow社区r>> are called.

i.e.

operator=() // the assignment operator
operator==() // the equality of comparison operator
operator++() // the increment operator
operator--() // decrement operator etc.
operator<() // the less-than operator

and so forth...

<< is both the insertion operator and the left-shift operator.
>> is the extraction operator and the right-shift operator.

In the context of iostreams, they are considered to be stream insertion/extraction. In the context of bit-shifting, they are left-shift and right-shift.

In C++ Streams,

• << is insertion operator.
• >> is extraction operator.

In Binary Operations,

• Right shift (>>)
• Left shift (<<)

<< left shift

>> right shift

<< = Bitwise left shift
>> = Bitwise right shift

Bit Shift Operators

The original names were left shift operator (<<) and right shift operator (>>), but with their meanings perverted by streams into insertion and extraction, you could argue that even in bitwise operations << inserts bits on the right while >> extracts them. Consequently, I almost always refer to them as the insertion and extraction operators.

<< is the 'left-shift' operator. It shifts its first operand left by the number of bits specified by its second operand.

They are called the Guillemet Left and Guillemet Right symbols :)