Streams in C++

In C++ streams are represented with datatypes implemented in a number of libraries:

#inlcude <iostream>

istream	Inputstreams usually already associated with the keyboard (cin).
ostream	Outputstreams usually already associated with the monitor (cout or cerr)

#inlcude <fstream>

ifstream	Inputstreams the user must associated with a file on the computer disk
ofstream	Outputstreams the user must associated with a file on the computer disk

#inlcude <sstream>

istringstream	inputstreams the user can use to read from a string using the formatting facilities provided by streams
ostringstream	Outputstreams the user can use to write to a string using the formatting facilities provided by streams

A programmer does not need to worry about associating cout, cin and cerr. They can always be used straight after #include<iostream>. Using streams usually consist of three phases (cin, cerr and cout exceptions):

• Initializing (connecting, associating)
• Operating with the stream (read, write etc...)
• Closing

Before handling data with the streams found in fstream and sstream libraries they must be initialized:

ifstream: A variable of the type ifstream is declared and the name of the file to be read is given:

ifstream stream_name( file_name );

ofstream: A variable of the type ofstream is declared and the name of the file to be written into is given:

ofstream stream_name( file_name );

istringstream: A variable of the type istringstream is declared and the string from which the input is read is given:

istringstream stream_name( s_name );

ostringstream: A varible of the type ostringstream is declared.

ostringstream stream_name;

The file_name is not of the type string. It is of an older character string type adopted from the C language. The programmer must give the name of the correct type:

string file_name;
cin >> file_name;
ifstream file( file_name.c_str() );

the c_str() function returns a character string of the c-style string type matching the original string-typed string. The file_name can also be a character string literal:

ifstream file( "inputs.txt" );

After being initialized, different operations can be done with the stream depending on its type and whether it is an input or an output stream (phase 2).

Working with streams can be confusing because of different alternative ways to do things:

operations: cout << "Hello!";
functions: getline( cin, cstring );
own function: cout.put( 'a' );

Operations that can be used with all kinds of outputstreams (e.g. cout):

cout << value << endl;

Prints the value into the stream: the value can be of any basic datatype or string.

cout.put( c );

Prints one character c(char) into the stream

There are no more essential printing operations. Almost everything can be done with << operator.

The stream must be closed when it is not needed any longer (phase 3). If it isn't properly closed it will needlessly keep on using the system's resources. There are two ways to close a stream:

• If the stream is a local variable, C++ automatically closes it when the code block the stream was defined in is exited.
• The stream can also be "manually" closed if needed with the stream's own function close():

ifstream database( "phonenumbers.dat" ); // using the stream
...
database.close();

The stream cannot be used after closing unless it is initialized again.

cin, cout and cerr

cin is used for reading from the keyboard and cout for printing on the screen. cerr has the same functionality as cout but it is meant for printing the error messages of the program. All other output is printed into cout.

Reference: cplusplus, exforsys, msdn

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