String and I/O Formatting (Modern C++)
C++ iostreams are capable of formatted string I/O. For example, the following code shows how to set cout to format an integer to output in hexadecimal, first saving off the current state and re-setting afterwards, because once state formatting is passed to cout, it stays that way until changed, not just for the one line of code.
#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
ios state(nullptr);
cout << "The answer in decimal is: " << 42 << endl;
state.copyfmt(cout); // save current formatting
cout << "In hex: 0x" // now load up a bunch of formatting modifiers
<< hex
<< uppercase
<< setw(8)
<< setfill('0')
<< 42 // the actual value we wanted to print out
<< endl;
cout.copyfmt(state); // restore previous formatting
}
This can be entirely too cumbersome in many cases. As an alternative, you can use Boost.Format from the Boost C++ libraries, even though it’s nonstandard. You can download any Boost library from the Boost website.
Some advantages of Boost.Format are:
Safe: Type-safe, and throws an exception for errors—for example, the specification of too few or too many items.
Extensible: Works for any type that can be streamed.
Convenient: Standard Posix and similar format strings.
Although Boost.Format is built on C++ iostreams, which are safe and extensible, they aren't performance-optimized. When you require performance optimization, consider C printf and sprintf, which are fast and easy to use. However, they are not extensible or safe from vulnerabilities. (Safe versions exist, but they incur a slight performance penalty. For more information, see printf_s, _printf_s_l, wprintf_s, _wprintf_s_l and sprintf_s, _sprintf_s_l, swprintf_s, _swprintf_s_l).
The following code demonstrates some of the Boost formatting features.
string s = str( format("%2% %2% %1%\n") % "world" % "hello" );
// s contains "hello hello world"
for( auto i = 0; i < names.size(); ++i )
cout << format("%1% %2% %|40t|%3%\n") % first[i] % last[i] % tel[i];
// Georges Benjamin Clemenceau +33 (0) 123 456 789
// Jean de Lattre de Tassigny +33 (0) 987 654 321