c++ insert to a stream with formatting for hex - c++

Question

I often do something like:
uint8_t c=some_value;
std::cout << std::setfill('0') << std::setw(2);
std::cout << std::hex << int(c);
std::cout << std::setfill(' ');
(in particular while dumping debugging information). Wouldn't it be nice to have something manipulatorish that I could put in a stream like this:
std::cout << "c value: 0x" << hexb(c) << '\n';
that would do all of that? Does anyone know how to do that?
I've gotten this to work but would love to have a simpler way:
#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>
class hexcdumper{
public:
hexcdumper(uint8_t c):c(c){};
std::ostream&
operator( )(std::ostream& os) const
{
// set fill and width and save the previous versions to be restored later
char fill=os.fill('0');
std::streamsize ss=os.width(2);
// save the format flags so we can restore them after setting std::hex
std::ios::fmtflags ff=os.flags();
// output the character with hex formatting
os << std::hex << int(c);
// now restore the fill, width and flags
os.fill(fill);
os.width(ss);
os.flags(ff);
return os;
}
private:
uint8_t c;
};
hexcdumper
hexb(uint8_t c)
{
// dump a hex byte with width 2 and a fill character of '0'
return(hexcdumper(c));
}
std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& os, const hexcdumper& hcd)
{
return(hcd(os));
}
When I do this:
std::cout << "0x" << hexb(14) << '\n';
hexb(c) is invoked and returns a hexcdumper whose constructor saves c
the overloaded operator<< for hexcdumper invokes
hexcdumper::operator() passing it the stream
hexcdumper's operator() does all the magic for us
after hexcdumper::operator() returns, the overloaded operator<<
returns the stream as returned from hexcdumper::operator() so chaining works.
On the output, I see:
0x0e
Is there a simpler way to do this?
Patrick

Answer 1

You can do this directly on the stream pipe:
std::cout << "Hex = 0x" << hex << 14 << ", decimal = #" << dec << 14 << endl;
Output:
Hex = 0xe, decimal = #14