# Chapter 27: Input/Output

Chapter 27 deals with iostreams and all their subcomponents and extensions. All kinds of fun stuff.

# Contents

- Copying a file
- The buffering is screwing up my program!
- Binary I/O
- What is this <sstream>/stringstreams thing?
- Deriving a stream buffer
- More on binary I/O

## Copying a file

So you want to copy a file quickly and easily, and most important, completely portably. And since this is C++, you have an open ifstream (call it IN) and an open ofstream (call it OUT):

       #include <fstream>

       std::ifstream  IN ("input_file");
       std::ofstream  OUT ("output_file");

Here's the easiest way to get it completely wrong:

       OUT << IN;

For those of you who don't already know why this doesn't work (probably from having done it before), I invite you to quickly create a simple text file called "input_file" containing the sentence

       The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

surrounded by blank lines. Code it up and try it. The contents of "output_file" may surprise you.

Seriously, go do it. Get surprised, then come back. It's worth it.

The thing to remember is that the `basic_[io]stream` classes handle formatting, nothing else. In particular, they break up on whitespace. The actual reading, writing, and storing of data is handled by the `basic_streambuf` family. Fortunately, the `operator<<` is overloaded to take an ostream and a pointer-to-streambuf, in order to help with just this kind of "dump the data verbatim" situation.

Why a pointer to streambuf and not just a streambuf? Well, the [io]streams hold pointers (or references, depending on the implementation) to their buffers, not the actual buffers. This allows polymorphic behavior on the part of the buffers as well as the streams themselves. The pointer is easily retrieved using the `rdbuf()` member function. Therefore, the easiest way to copy the file is:

       OUT << IN.rdbuf();

So what was happening with OUT<<IN? Undefined behavior, since that particular << isn't defined by the Standard. I have seen instances where it is implemented, but the character extraction process removes all the whitespace, leaving you with no blank lines and only "Thequickbrownfox...". With libraries that do not define that operator, IN (or one of IN's member pointers) sometimes gets converted to a void*, and the output file then contains a perfect text representation of a hexidecimal address (quite a big surprise). Others don't compile at all.

Also note that none of this is specific to o*f*streams. The operators shown above are all defined in the parent basic_ostream class and are therefore available with all possible descendents.

Return to top of page or to the FAQ.

## The buffering is screwing up my program!

First, are you sure that you understand buffering? Particularly the fact that C++ may not, in fact, have anything to do with it?

The rules for buffering can be a little odd, but they aren't any different from those of C. (Maybe that's why they can be a bit odd.) Many people think that writing a newline to an output stream automatically flushes the output buffer. This is true only when the output stream is, in fact, a terminal and not a file or some other device -- and that may not even be true since C++ says nothing about files nor terminals. All of that is system-dependant. (The "newline-buffer-flushing only occuring on terminals" thing is mostly true on Unix systems, though.)

Some people also believe that sending `endl` down an output stream only writes a newline. This is incorrect; after a newline is written, the buffer is also flushed. Perhaps this is the effect you want when writing to a screen -- get the text out as soon as possible, etc -- but the buffering is largely wasted when doing this to a file:

       output << "a line of text" << endl;
       output << some_data_variable << endl;
       output << "another line of text" << endl;

The proper thing to do in this case to just write the data out and let the libraries and the system worry about the buffering. If you need a newline, just write a newline:

       output << "a line of text\n"
              << some_data_variable << '\n'
              << "another line of text\n";

I have also joined the output statements into a single statement. You could make the code prettier by moving the single newline to the start of the quoted text on the thing line, for example.

If you do need to flush the buffer above, you can send an `endl` if you also need a newline, or just flush the buffer yourself:

       output << ...... << flush;    // can use std::flush manipulator
       output.flush();               // or call a member fn

On the other hand, there are times when writing to a file should be like writing to standard error; no buffering should be done because the data needs to appear quickly (a prime example is a log file for security-related information). The way to do this is just to turn off the buffering before any I/O operations at all have been done, i.e., as soon as possible after opening:

       std::ofstream    os ("/foo/bar/baz");
       std::ifstream    is ("/qux/quux/quuux");
       int   i;

       os.rdbuf()->pubsetbuf(0,0);
       is.rdbuf()->pubsetbuf(0,0);
       ...
       os << "this data is written immediately\n";
       is >> i;   // and this will probably cause a disk read

Since all aspects of buffering are handled by a streambuf-derived member, it is necessary to get at that member with `rdbuf()`. Then the public version of `setbuf` can be called. The arguments are the same as those for the Standard C I/O Library function (a buffer area followed by its size).

A great deal of this is implementation-dependant. For example, `streambuf` does not specify any actions for its own `setbuf()`-ish functions; the classes derived from `streambuf` each define behavior that "makes sense" for that class: an argument of (0,0) turns off buffering for `filebuf` but has undefined behavior for its sibling `stringbuf`, and specifying anything other than (0,0) has varying effects. Other user-defined class derived from streambuf can do whatever they want.

A last reminder: there are usually more buffers involved than just those at the language/library level. Kernel buffers, disk buffers, and the like will also have an effect. Inspecting and changing those are system-dependant.

Return to top of page or to the FAQ.

## Binary I/O

The first and most important thing to remember about binary I/O is that opening a file with `ios::binary` is not, repeat not, the only thing you have to do. It is not a silver bullet, and will not allow you to use the `<</>>` operators of the normal fstreams to do binary I/O.

Sorry. Them's the breaks.

This isn't going to try and be a complete tutorial on reading and writing binary files (because "binary" covers a lot of ground), but we will try and clear up a couple of misconceptions and common errors.

First, `ios::binary` has exactly one defined effect, no more and no less. Normal text mode has to be concerned with the newline characters, and the runtime system will translate between (for example) '\n' and the appropriate end-of-line sequence (LF on Unix, CRLF on DOS, CR on Macintosh, etc). (There are other things that normal mode does, but that's the most obvious.) Opening a file in binary mode disables this conversion, so reading a CRLF sequence under Windows won't accidentally get mapped to a '\n' character, etc. Binary mode is not supposed to suddenly give you a bitstream, and if it is doing so in your program then you've discovered a bug in your vendor's compiler (or some other part of the C++ implementation, possibly the runtime system).

Second, using `<<` to write and `>>` to read isn't going to work with the standard file stream classes, even if you use `skipws` during reading. Why not? Because ifstream and ofstream exist for the purpose of formatting, not reading and writing. Their job is to interpret the data into text characters, and that's exactly what you don't want to happen during binary I/O.

Third, using the `get()` and `put()/write()` member functions still aren't guaranteed to help you. These are "unformatted" I/O functions, but still character-based. (This may or may not be what you want, see below.)

Notice how all the problems here are due to the inappropriate use of formatting functions and classes to perform something which requires that formatting not be done? There are a seemingly infinite number of solutions, and a few are listed here:

- "Derive your own fstream-type classes and write your own <</>> operators to do binary I/O on whatever data types you're using." This is a Bad Thing, because while the compiler would probably be just fine with it, other humans are going to be confused. The overloaded bitshift operators have a well-defined meaning (formatting), and this breaks it.
- "Build the file structure in memory, then `mmap()` the file and copy the structure." Well, this is easy to make work, and easy to break, and is pretty equivalent to using `::read()` and `::write()` directly, and makes no use of the iostream library at all...
- "Use streambufs, that's what they're there for." While not trivial for the beginner, this is the best of all solutions. The streambuf/filebuf layer is the layer that is responsible for actual I/O. If you want to use the C++ library for binary I/O, this is where you start.

How to go about using streambufs is a bit beyond the scope of this document (at least for now), but while streambufs go a long way, they still leave a couple of things up to you, the programmer. As an example, byte ordering is completely between you and the operating system, and you have to handle it yourself.

Deriving a streambuf or filebuf class from the standard ones, one that is specific to your data types (or an abstraction thereof) is probably a good idea, and lots of examples exist in journals and on Usenet. Using the standard filebufs directly (either by declaring your own or by using the pointer returned from an fstream's `rdbuf()`) is certainly feasible as well.

One area that causes problems is trying to do bit-by-bit operations with filebufs. C++ is no different from C in this respect: I/O must be done at the byte level. If you're trying to read or write a few bits at a time, you're going about it the wrong way. You must read/write an integral number of bytes and then process the bytes. (For example, the streambuf functions take and return variables of type `int_type`.)

Another area of problems is opening text files in binary mode. Generally, binary mode is intended for binary files, and opening text files in binary mode means that you now have to deal with all of those end-of-line and end-of-file problems that we mentioned before. An instructive thread from comp.lang.c++.moderated delved off into this topic starting more or less at this article and continuing to the end of the thread. (You'll have to sort through some flames every couple of paragraphs, but the points made are good ones.)

## What is this <sstream>/stringstreams thing?

Stringstreams (defined in the header `<sstream>`) are in this author's opinion one of the coolest things since sliced time. An example of their use is in the Received Wisdom section for Chapter 21 (Strings), describing how to format strings.

The quick definition is: they are siblings of ifstream and ofstream, and they do for `std::string` what their siblings do for files. All that work you put into writing `<<` and `>>` functions for your classes now pays off again! Need to format a string before passing the string to a function? Send your stuff via `<<` to an ostringstream. You've read a string as input and need to parse it? Initialize an istringstream with that string, and then pull pieces out of it with `>>`. Have a stringstream and need to get a copy of the string inside? Just call the `str()` member function.

This only works if you've written your `<<`/`>>` functions correctly, though, and correctly means that they take istreams and ostreams as parameters, not ifstreams and ofstreams. If they take the latter, then your I/O operators will work fine with file streams, but with nothing else -- including stringstreams.

If you are a user of the strstream classes, you need to update your code. You don't have to explicitly append `ends` to terminate the C-style character array, you don't have to mess with "freezing" functions, and you don't have to manage the memory yourself. The strstreams have been officially deprecated, which means that 1) future revisions of the C++ Standard won't support them, and 2) if you use them, people will laugh at you.

## Deriving a stream buffer

Creating your own stream buffers for I/O can be remarkably easy. If you are interested in doing so, we highly recommend two very excellent books: Standard C++ IOStreams and Locales by Langer and Kreft, ISBN 0-201-18395-1, and The C++ Standard Library by Nicolai Josuttis, ISBN 0-201-37926-0. Both are published by Addison-Wesley, who isn't paying us a cent for saying that, honest.

Here is a simple example, io/outbuf1, from the Josuttis text. It transforms everything sent through it to uppercase. This version assumes many things about the nature of the character type being used (for more information, read the books or the newsgroups):

        #include <iostream>
        #include <streambuf>
        #include <locale>
        #include <cstdio>

        class outbuf : public std::streambuf
        {
          protected:
    	/* central output function
    	 * - print characters in uppercase mode
    	 */
    	virtual int_type overflow (int_type c) {
    	    if (c != EOF) {
    		// convert lowercase to uppercase
    		c = std::toupper(static_cast<char>(c),getloc());

    		// and write the character to the standard output
    		if (putchar(c) == EOF) {
    		    return EOF;
    		}
    	    }
    	    return c;
    	}
        };

        int main()
        {
    	// create special output buffer
    	outbuf ob;
    	// initialize output stream with that output buffer
    	std::ostream out(&ob);

    	out << "31 hexadecimal: "
    	    << std::hex << 31 << std::endl;
    	return 0;
        }

Try it yourself!

## More on binary I/O

Towards the beginning of February 2001, the subject of "binary" I/O was brought up in a couple of places at the same time. One notable place was Usenet, where James Kanze and Dietmar Kühl separately posted articles on why attempting generic binary I/O was not a good idea. (Here are copies of Kanze's article and Kühl's article.)

Briefly, the problems of byte ordering and type sizes mean that the unformatted functions like `ostream::put()` and `istream::get()` cannot safely be used to communicate between arbitrary programs, or across a network, or from one invocation of a program to another invocation of the same program on a different platform, etc.

The entire Usenet thread is instructive, and took place under the subject heading "binary iostreams" on both comp.std.c++ and comp.lang.c++.moderated in parallel. Also in that thread, Dietmar Kühl mentioned that he had written a pair of stream classes that would read and write XDR, which is a good step towards a portable binary format.

Comments and suggestions are welcome, and may be sent to the mailing list.
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