What is the meaning of the ==<> operator?

Question

Looking into some code of a colleague of mine, I came accross the following:

friend bool operator==<>(ValueIter<Type> const &rhs, ValueIter<Type> const &lhs);

It is declared in a template class:

template<typename Type>
class ValueIter: public std::iterator<std::bidirectional_iterator_tag, Type>

Can someone tell me what the ==<> symbol indicates? I expect it has something to with the != operator.

Answer 1

It looks like two, the operator== that is a full template instantiation or specialisation <>.

I've seen only a few like this in the wild though.

Given the friend, the class is probably befriending the template operator.

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If you are getting linker errors with it, see this answer for why.

Answer 2

Your question is incomplete.

Presumably, in some context within the code you are examining, there is a templated operator==() function.

Then within some class, a particular specialisation of that templated operator==() is being declared as a friend.

Without context that you haven't given (i.e. of the preceding template definition, or of the enclosing class definition) it is not possible to give a more specific answer. There are too many possibilities for what the template or relevant specialisations are.