[c++] C++ equivalent of Java's toString?

You can also do it this way, allowing polymorphism:

class Base {
public:
   virtual std::ostream& dump(std::ostream& o) const {
      return o << "Base: " << b << "; ";
   }
private:
  int b;
};

class Derived : public Base {
public:
   virtual std::ostream& dump(std::ostream& o) const {
      return o << "Derived: " << d << "; ";
   }
private:
   int d;
}

std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& o, const Base& b) { return b.dump(o); }