Final answer:
The difference between a member method and a friend method for overloading the << operator is that the friend method is a global function with access rights to the class, while the member method is a function that is part of the class' interface.
Step-by-step explanation:
The difference between a member method and a friend method for overloading the << operator is as follows:
A) The friend method is a global function that has been given special access to the private and protected members of the class, while the member method is a member function of the class.
Therefore, the correct answer is A) The friend method is a global function, while the member method is a member function.
In the context of operator overloading in C++ programming, when the << operator is overloaded using a member function, the object for which it is called can be passed implicitly as the this pointer. However, when using a friend function, the object must be passed explicitly to the function. Because of this, friend functions are often used to overload the << operator as they can handle the left operand being a different type, such as std::ostream. This is important for chaining calls like std::cout << obj1 << obj2.