Ion Gaztañaga wrote:
Sebastian Redl wrote:
[snip]
-> Hard formatting: printf/scanf are much easier to use and they don't need several hundred of function calls to do their job. The operator<< overloading is also a problem if each call needs some internal locking. A formatting syntax that can minimize the locking needs would be a good choice. I would be really happy with a type-safe printf (variadic templates to the rescue).
I'd rather disagree with you here. Operator<< gives a great advantage of extensibility which printf cannot offer. I can define my own classes and overload the operator for them, and the IO system will work as expected with my extensions. The same thing with operator>> and scanf. I have to admit though, that indeed formatting is not a bright side of the current IO design. I think a better set of manipulators for basic primitives should do good. There might even be a printf-like manipulator: int x = 300; double y = 1.2; // Output: "Hello: 0x0000012c; 1,200" cout << "Hello: " << format("0x%08x", x) << "; " << fixed(y, point = ',', precision = 3) << endl; vector< int > v; // Output: "1, 2, 3" cout << range(v.begin(), v.end(), separator = ", ") << endl; And of course, widely used dump manipulator is an often requested feature. BTW, I think this domain is well suitable to be covered by yet another Boost library. :)