I have a question about classes

[NOMADMAN]

I've been working on this project and this problem for a long time. I got understand the istream and ostream of classes well enough, my book is ****, this question will probably be simple for a c++ vet.

I have a class, customer. Its templated. Declare a varible of type customer(newCustomer). When I do cin >> newCustomer it goes through its routin about gathering info, like it should. In the istream function of the class I have it cout << some of the data the user just inputed (for a test). After the istream finishes it goes back to main, then I cout << newCustomer (another test). It prints out like it should except the user information is a bunch of null crap. Any idea whats going on? I just don't understand how c++ works.

Heres the code:

Important segment of main:

auto customer<void> newCustomer;

cin >> newCustomer;
cout << newCustomer;
custTree.insert(newCustomer);


istream and ostream fnctions in customer class:

template <class person>
ostream & operator << (ostream &o, const customer<person> c)
{
o << c.ccNum << "\t"
<< c.fName << " "
<< c.lName << "\t"
<< c.status << "\t"
<< c.prevRentals << "\t"
<< c.cardDiscount << "\t"
<< c.prevRentDiscount << "\t"
<< c.fedTax << "\t"
<< c.netCost << "\t";

return o;
}

template <class person>
istream & operator>> (istream i, customer<person> c)
{
auto int tempStatus = 3;

cout << "Enter Credit Card #: ";
i >> c.ccNum;
cout << c.ccNum;

cout << "Enter first name: ";
i >> c.fName;
cout << "Last name: ";
i >> c.lName;

cout << "1. Platinum 2. Gold 3. Regular\n";
cout << "Card status: ";
i >> tempStatus;
switch (tempStatus)
{
case 1:
c.status = Platinum;
c.cardDiscPerc = 0.06;
break;
case 2:
c.status = Gold;
c.cardDiscPerc = 0.03;
break;
default:
c.status = Regular;
c.cardDiscPerc = 0.0;
break;
}

cout << "# of Previous Car Rentals: ";
i >> c.prevRentals;

cout << c.ccNum;

return i;
}


custTree is a tree data class. I'm sure it works as I got it from my teacher. The problem lies within myself.
I will include a zip of my entire project if this for some reason isn't enough. Please keep in mind I'm new to C++.

Thanks to anyone who attempts this question!

NOMAD

[CornedBee]

The zip would be good, I'd like to see where exactly it fails.
One thing up front:
const customer<person> c
should be
const customer<person> &c


I've just realized that this is surely the problem you have. It's not that grave for the << operator, but it makes the >> operator useless (learn a bit about call-by-value and call-by-reference and you'll understand why)