I've used statements such as this quite a bit in my C++ programming:
std::string s;
std::ifstream in("my_input.txt");
if(!in) {
std::cerr << "File not opened" << std::endl;
exit(1);
}
while(in >> s) {
// Do something with s
}
What I want to know is, why does this work?
I looked at the return value of operator>>, and it's an istream object, not a boolean. How does an istream object somehow get interpreted as a bool value that can be put inside of if statements and while loops?
The base class std::basic_ios provides an operator bool() method that returns a boolean representing the validity of the stream. For example, if a read reached the end of file without grabbing any characters, then std::ios_base::failbit will be set in the stream. Then operator bool() will be invoked, returning !fail(), at which time extraction will stop because the condition is false.
A conditional expression represents an explicit boolean conversion, so this:
while (in >> s)
is equivalent to this
while (static_cast<bool>(in >> s))
which is equivalent to this
while ((in >> s).operator bool())
which is equivalent to
while (!(in >> s).fail())
std::basic_ios, from which the input and output streams inherit, has the conversion function operator bool (or operator void* prior to C++11 to get around the safe-bool problem, which is no longer an issue thanks to the explicit keyword).
See std::basic_ios::operator bool:
This operator makes it possible to use streams and functions that return references to streams as loop conditions, resulting in the idiomatic C++ input loops such as while(stream >> value) {...} or while(getline(stream, string)){...}. Such loops execute the loop's body only if the input operation succeeded.
Related
I am a C++ beginner,
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
char v1;
// valid no warning
std::cout << (std::cin >> v1) << std::endl; // return value of the expression expected
return 0;
}
// output: 1
// return value of the expression is 1?
Is the return value of (std::cin >> v1) really 1? Why?
I don't know of a current compiler that will accept your code as it stands right now. g++, clang and Microsoft all reject it, saying they can't find an overload to match the arguments (i.e., an operator<< for ostream that takes an istream as an operand).
It's possible to get the result you've posited with code on this order: std::cout << !!(std::cin >> v1) << "\n";. Depending on the age of the compiler and standard with which it complies, this does one of two things.
With a reasonably current compiler, this will use the Boolean conversion on the istream to get it to match the ! operator, then apply that (twice) to the result, so you write out the result of that operator.
With old enough compilers, there won't be a Boolean conversion operator, but there will be an overload of operator!, which also does a conversion to Boolean (but negated in sense, of course). The result of that will then be negated by the second !.
Either way, you end up writing out a Boolean value (or int containing zero or one on an old enough compiler) that indicates whether the stream is in a failed or successful state.
This is done to allow you to check input as you're reading it, so you can process input data sanely. For example, when/if you want to read all the values in a file, stopping at the end of the file, or when you encounter something that can't be interpreted as the desired type, you can write code on this general order:
// read integers from a file and print out their sum
int temp;
int total = 0;
while (std::cin >> temp) {
total += temp;
}
std::cout << total << "\n";
The while loop uses the conversion to Boolean to determine whether an attempt at reading a value was successful or not, so it continues reading values as long as that happens successfully, and quits immediately when reading is unsuccessful.
One common source of errors is to write a loop on this order instead:
while (std::cin.good()) { // or almost equivalently, check for end of file.
std::cin >> temp;
total += temp;
}
But loops like this get the sequence incorrect. One common symptom of the problem with this is that the last number in the file will be added to the total twice instead of once.
std::cin >> v1 returns cin; Not sure what type it gets converted to for std::cout, but most likely it indicates the state of cin, where 1 is good
Is the return value of (std::cin >> v1) really 1
No, see the ref for cin, it will return a istream.
Your codes will not work, we can not pass ::istream (std::cin) to operator<< of a std::ostream (std::cout).
Shoule be like the following:
char v1;
cout << "Input a char:";
cin >> v1;
The program only works for Pre-C++11 because the conversion to bool is not explicit.
Starting from C++11, the program will no longer work because the conversion to bool is explicit.
Note that std::cin >> v1; returns std::cin and not 1. But there is no operator<< for std::ostream that takes a std::cin.
The reason it works for Pre-C++11 is because in this case the conversion to bool was not explicit. But starting from C++11, the conversion to bool was made explicit and so the code no longer compiles.
For example,
bool b = std::cin; //WORKS for Pre-C++11 but FAILS for C++11 & onwards
bool b{std::cin}; //OK, WORKS for all versions(Pre-C++11 as well as C++11 & onwards) because in direct initialization we can use explicit conversion
Im working with the book SFML Game Development by Examples and I dont really get what this sentence does. I've never seen something like this
void Anim_Directional::ReadIn(std::stringstream& l_stream){
l_stream >> m_frameStart >> m_frameEnd >> m_frameRow
>> m_frameTime >> m_frameActionStart >> m_frameActionEnd;
}
In C++ they got the "bright" idea of overloading the rightshift and leftshift operators with streams to represent serialization/deserialization.
stream >> var
means "read var from stream".
Symmetrically
stream << var
mean "put var into stream"
The operation of "streaming" in or out also returns the stream, so you can chain operations like:
stream >> var1 >> var2;
Note that the "streaming" was chosen just because of the look and because the priority was considered reasonable, but it's still just an overloaded operator and implies for example no strict sequence of evaluation. For example in:
stream << f() << g();
may be function g is called (somewhat surprisingly) before function f.
NOTE: the sequencing problem was handled by hammering this special case in last C++ standard (C++17). While it doesn't hold in general it's guaranteed for shift operators (presumably for this specific reason). So in f()+g() may be f is called later than g, but in f()<<g() this cannot happen.
C++ allows you to overload >> and << operators. std::stringstream is a derivative of std::istream and it inherits the >> operator overloads of std::istream.
The std::istream has a bunch of overloads for many common types. You can find a list of them here.
A typical std::istream >> operator overload looks as follows:
std::istream& operator>>(std::istream& stream, YourType& var) {
/*
** code here to parse and read a 'YourType' into 'var'
*/
/* var is set */
return stream; /* return the same stream to allow chaining */
}
When you do some_stream >> YourType_object, the matching >> operator overload is invoked. In the aforementioned case, our operator overload is invoked with stream parameter taking some_stream and var taking YourType_object.
The >> overloads (and << overloads too) intelligently return the stream which they operated; thereby, allowing a series of >> operators to be chained.
Here is an overloaded >>operator function:
std::istream& operator>>(std::istream& is, std::vector<int>& v){
string s;
if (! (is >> s) )
return is;
...
return is;
}
To my understanding, if(! (is >> s)) make no sense because the terminal or console will wait until the input from keyboards or other sources enter s. So value of condition in if() will ultimately be false. Who can help?
The is >> s attempts to read the string s from stream is.
istreams operator>>() returns a reference to is.
istreams operator!() tests if the stream is in an invalid state. Specifically, it returns true if the stream's badbit or failbit has been set.
So,
if (! (is >> s) )
return is;
is functionally equivalent to
is >> s;
if (is.fail()) return is; // is.fail() returns true if failbit or badbit are set
which means that the function immediately returns if reading a string from the stream fails. Note that this is distinct from reaching the end of the stream.
istream does not have to be a console. It can be a stringstream. And besides, the 'waiting for user input' is not seen by the application code. It is asleep while the input stream is being filled (by the operating system, underlying library, ...)
Anyhow: in case the input stream contains no data at all, this condition will be true.
std::string s; // empty!
std::stringstream ss(s);
std::vector<std::string> strings;
ss >> strings; // should be empty!
To understand what if (!(is >> s)) means you need to understand what if (is >> s) means.
Since is is an std::istream, operator >> returns an std::istream. Hence, is >> s is an std::istream, which inside an if must produce a logical value true or false. This Q&A explains how it is done in different versions of C++. Essentially, std::istream evaluates to a true condition when the operation is successful.
Now that you know the meaning of is >> s, you can figure out that adding a negation flips that meaning: !(is >> s) would be true only when reading an s from is is unsuccessful. For strings an unsuccessful read means that the stream is in an invalid state, for example, because the end of stream has been reached.
you are doing many things in one line
! (is >> s)
you take the inputstream and use it to assign the object s, the evaluate teh result of s in the if condition
My question would have a boolean answer: yes or not. Whichever it would be, can someone explain how the following code is compiled by both GNU-g++ 4.9.2 and clang 3.5, while GNU-g++ 5.1.1 no longer accepts it, claiming that there is no matching operator==?
And how it could be changed, for this last compiler, in order to have the same results i.e. to have the operator>> able to distinguish, in such a simple way, whether
it is called by the standard input stream or by something else?
# include <iostream>
# include <fstream>
struct S {};
std::istream& operator >> (std::istream& i, S& s)
{
if(i == std::cin) std::clog << "this is standard input\n";
else std::clog << "this is some other input stream\n";
return i;
}
int main(int narg, const char ** args)
{
S s;
std :: cin >> s;
std::ifstream inp(args[1]);
inp >> s;
}
// to be executed with the name of an existing
// disk file on the command line....
No. There's no operator== that operates on std::istream objects.
Your being able to compare two std::istreams is an unfortunate consequence caused by the conversion function of std::istream, specifically operator void*. In the expression i == std::cin, both i and std::cin are implicitly converted to void*, and the resulting values are compared. This is not really meaningful. This conversion function was removed in C++11 (replaced by an explicit conversion function, which won't be called in this situation), so if you enable the C++11 mode, the code will not compile.
As is stated here, if you want to check whether the reference i refers to std::cin, you can use &i == &std::cin.
Standard C++ streams don't have ==, >, < operators because they are not very meaningful in that context: what should "stream a is > than stream b" mean?
However, it shouldn't matter what type of istream you're dealing with: as long as you're not using specific methods defined in descendant classes (like is_open), base methods are shared (extracting, for instance). Whether you're extracting a string from a istringstream or a ifstream, you just do in >> str and let polymorphism take action.
If you really want to know the polymorphic type of the istream, you can use typeid or, simply, function overloading. In your case, with RTTI(typeid)
if ( typeid(in) == typeid(std::cin) )
// cin
else
// another istream type
Using overloading:
std::istream& operator >> (std::istream& i, S& s)
{
std::clog << "this is standard input\n";
return i;
}
std::ifstream& operator>>(std::ifstream& i, S& s)
{
std::clog << "this is some file input stream\n";
return i;
}
Here is a C++ code which reads as many words
from a given text file as possible until it meets EOF.
string text;
fstream inputStream;
inputStream.open("filename.txt");
while (inputStream >> text)
cout << text << endl;
inputStream.close();
My question is:
what procedure exactly is performed behind on converting the condition of the while loop (i.e., inputStream >> text) into a boolean values (i.e., true or false)?
My own answer for the question is:
To my understanding, inputStream >> text is supposed to return another (file) input stream. The stream seems to be NULL when EOF arrives. The NULL may be defined as 0, which is equivalent to false.
Does my answer make sense? Even if my answer does make sense, such conversion of InputStream to bool doesn't make me so comfortable. :)
what procedure exactly is performed behind on converting the condition of the while loop (i.e., inputStream >> text) into a boolean values (i.e., true or false)?
operator>> returns a reference to the stream.
In C++11 the reference is then converted to a bool by the stream's operator bool() function, which returns the equivalent of !fail().
In C++98 the same is achieved by using operator void*(), and the returned pointer is either NULL to indicate failure or a non-null pointer if fail() is false, which is then implicitly converted to a bool in the while evaluation.
I know that my answer has been perfectly answered by user657267. But I am adding one more example to understand the answer more easily.
// evaluating a stream
#include <iostream> // std::cerr
#include <fstream> // std::ifstream
int main () {
std::ifstream is;
is.open ("test.txt");
if (is) { <===== Here, an example of converting ifstream into bool
// read file
}
else {
std::cerr << "Error opening 'test.txt'\n";
}
return 0;
}
Ref. http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/ios/ios/operator_bool/