Getting a FILE* from a std::fstream - c++

Question

Is there a (cross-platform) way to get a C FILE* handle from a C++ std::fstream ?
The reason I ask is because my C++ library accepts fstreams and in one particular function I'd like to use a C library that accepts a FILE*.

Answer 1

The short answer is no.
The reason, is because the std::fstream is not required to use a FILE* as part of its implementation. So even if you manage to extract file descriptor from the std::fstream object and manually build a FILE object, then you will have other problems because you will now have two buffered objects writing to the same file descriptor.
The real question is why do you want to convert the std::fstream object into a FILE*?
Though I don't recommend it, you could try looking up funopen().
Unfortunately, this is not a POSIX API (it's a BSD extension) so its portability is in question. Which is also probably why I can't find anybody that has wrapped a std::stream with an object like this.
FILE *funopen(
const void *cookie,
int (*readfn )(void *, char *, int),
int (*writefn)(void *, const char *, int),
fpos_t (*seekfn) (void *, fpos_t, int),
int (*closefn)(void *)
);
This allows you to build a FILE object and specify some functions that will be used to do the actual work. If you write appropriate functions you can get them to read from the std::fstream object that actually has the file open.

Answer 2

There isn't a standardized way. I assume this is because the C++ standardization group didn't want to assume that a file handle can be represented as a fd.
Most platforms do seem to provide some non-standard way to do this.
http://www.ginac.de/~kreckel/fileno/ provides a good writeup of the situation and provides code that hides all the platform specific grossness, at least for GCC. Given how gross this is just on GCC, I think I'd avoid doing this all together if possible.

Answer 3

UPDATE: See #Jettatura what I think it is the best answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/33612982/225186 (Linux only?).
ORIGINAL:
(Probably not cross platform, but simple)
Simplifying the hack in http://www.ginac.de/~kreckel/fileno/ (dvorak answer), and looking at this gcc extension http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.6.2/libstdc++/api/a00069.html#a59f78806603c619eafcd4537c920f859,
I have this solution that works on GCC (4.8 at least) and clang (3.3 at least) before C++11:
#include<fstream>
#include<ext/stdio_filebuf.h>
typedef std::basic_ofstream<char>::__filebuf_type buffer_t;
typedef __gnu_cxx::stdio_filebuf<char> io_buffer_t;
FILE* cfile_impl(buffer_t* const fb){
return (static_cast<io_buffer_t* const>(fb))->file(); //type std::__c_file
}
FILE* cfile(std::ofstream const& ofs){return cfile_impl(ofs.rdbuf());}
FILE* cfile(std::ifstream const& ifs){return cfile_impl(ifs.rdbuf());}
and can be used this,
int main(){
std::ofstream ofs("file.txt");
fprintf(cfile(ofs), "sample1");
fflush(cfile(ofs)); // ofs << std::flush; doesn't help
ofs << "sample2\n";
}
Note: The stdio_filebuf is not used in newer versions of the library. The static_cast<>() is somewhat dangerous too. Use a dynamic_cast<>() instead of if you get a nullptr you need that's not the right class. You can try with stdio_sync_filebuf instead. Problem with that class is that the file() is not available at all anymore.
Limitations: (comments are welcome)
I find that it is important to fflush after fprintf printing to std::ofstream, otherwise the "sample2" appears before "sample1" in the example above. I don't know if there is a better workaround for that than using fflush. Notably ofs << flush doesn't help.
Cannot extract FILE* from std::stringstream, I don't even know if it is possible. (see below for an update).
I still don't know how to extract C's stderr from std::cerr etc., for example to use in fprintf(stderr, "sample"), in an hypothetical code like this fprintf(cfile(std::cerr), "sample").
Regarding the last limitation, the only workaround I found is to add these overloads:
FILE* cfile(std::ostream const& os){
if(std::ofstream const* ofsP = dynamic_cast<std::ofstream const*>(&os)) return cfile(*ofsP);
if(&os == &std::cerr) return stderr;
if(&os == &std::cout) return stdout;
if(&os == &std::clog) return stderr;
if(dynamic_cast<std::ostringstream const*>(&os) != 0){
throw std::runtime_error("don't know cannot extract FILE pointer from std::ostringstream");
}
return 0; // stream not recognized
}
FILE* cfile(std::istream const& is){
if(std::ifstream const* ifsP = dynamic_cast<std::ifstream const*>(&is)) return cfile(*ifsP);
if(&is == &std::cin) return stdin;
if(dynamic_cast<std::ostringstream const*>(&is) != 0){
throw std::runtime_error("don't know how to extract FILE pointer from std::istringstream");
}
return 0; // stream not recognized
}
Attempt to handle iostringstream
It is possible to read with fscanf from istream using fmemopen, but that requires a lot of book keeping and updating the input position of the stream after each read, if one wants to combine C-reads and C++-reads. I wasn't able to convert this into a cfile function like above. (Maybe a cfile class that keeps updating after each read is the way to go).
// hack to access the protected member of istreambuf that know the current position
char* access_gptr(std::basic_streambuf<char, std::char_traits<char>>& bs){
struct access_class : std::basic_streambuf<char, std::char_traits<char>>{
char* access_gptr() const{return this->gptr();}
};
return ((access_class*)(&bs))->access_gptr();
}
int main(){
std::istringstream iss("11 22 33");
// read the C++ way
int j1; iss >> j1;
std::cout << j1 << std::endl;
// read the C way
float j2;
char* buf = access_gptr(*iss.rdbuf()); // get current position
size_t buf_size = iss.rdbuf()->in_avail(); // get remaining characters
FILE* file = fmemopen(buf, buf_size, "r"); // open buffer memory as FILE*
fscanf(file, "%f", &j2); // finally!
iss.rdbuf()->pubseekoff(ftell(file), iss.cur, iss.in); // update input stream position from current FILE position.
std::cout << "j2 = " << j2 << std::endl;
// read again the C++ way
int j3; iss >> j3;
std::cout << "j3 = " << j3 << std::endl;
}

Answer 4

Well, you can get the file descriptor - I forget whether the method is fd() or getfd(). The implementations I've used provide such methods, but the language standard doesn't require them, I believe - the standard shouldn't care whether your platform uses fd's for files.
From that, you can use fdopen(fd, mode) to get a FILE*.
However, I think that the mechanisms the standard requires for synching STDIN/cin, STDOUT/cout and STDERR/cerr don't have to be visible to you. So if you're using both the fstream and FILE*, buffering may mess you up.
Also, if either the fstream OR the FILE closes, they'll probably close the underlying fd, so you need to make sure you flush BOTH before closing EITHER.

Answer 5

In a single-threaded POSIX application you can easily get the fd number in a portable way:
int fd = dup(0);
close(fd);
// POSIX requires the next opened file descriptor to be fd.
std::fstream file(...);
// now fd has been opened again and is owned by file
This method breaks in a multi-threaded application if this code races with other threads opening file descriptors.

Answer 6

yet another way to do this in Linux:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <cassert>
template<class STREAM>
struct STDIOAdapter
{
static FILE* yield(STREAM* stream)
{
assert(stream != NULL);
static cookie_io_functions_t Cookies =
{
.read = NULL,
.write = cookieWrite,
.seek = NULL,
.close = cookieClose
};
return fopencookie(stream, "w", Cookies);
}
ssize_t static cookieWrite(void* cookie,
const char* buf,
size_t size)
{
if(cookie == NULL)
return -1;
STREAM* writer = static_cast <STREAM*>(cookie);
writer->write(buf, size);
return size;
}
int static cookieClose(void* cookie)
{
return EOF;
}
}; // STDIOAdapter
Usage, for example:
#include <boost/iostreams/filtering_stream.hpp>
#include <boost/iostreams/filter/bzip2.hpp>
#include <boost/iostreams/device/file.hpp>
using namespace boost::iostreams;
int main()
{
filtering_ostream out;
out.push(boost::iostreams::bzip2_compressor());
out.push(file_sink("my_file.txt"));
FILE* fp = STDIOAdapter<filtering_ostream>::yield(&out);
assert(fp > 0);
fputs("Was up, Man", fp);
fflush (fp);
fclose(fp);
return 1;
}

Answer 7

There is a way to get file descriptor from fstream and then convert it to FILE* (via fdopen). Personally I don't see any need in FILE*, but with file descriptor you may do many interesting things such as redirecting (dup2).
Solution:
#define private public
#define protected public
#include <fstream>
#undef private
#undef protected
std::ifstream file("some file");
auto fno = file._M_filebuf._M_file.fd();
The last string works for libstdc++. If you are using some other library you will need to reverse-engineer it a bit.
This trick is dirty and will expose all private and public members of fstream. If you would like to use it in your production code I suggest you to create separate .cpp and .h with single function int getFdFromFstream(std::basic_ios<char>& fstr);. Header file must not include fstream.

Answer 8

I ran in that problem when I was faced with isatty() only working on a file descriptor.
In newer versions of the C++ standard library (at least since C++11), the solution proposed by alfC does not work anymore because that one class was changed to a new class.
The old method will still work if you use very old versions of the compiler. In newer version, you need to use std::basic_filebuf<>(). But that does not work with the standard I/O such as std::cout. For those, you need to use __gnu_cxx::stdio_sync_filebuf<>().
I have a functional example in my implementation of isatty() for C++ streams here. You should be able to lift off that one file and reuse it in your own project. In your case, though, you wanted the FILE* pointer, so just return that instead of the result of ::isatty(fileno(<of FILE*>)).
Here is a copy of the template function:
template<typename _CharT
, typename _Traits = std::char_traits<_CharT>>
bool isatty(std::basic_ios<_CharT, _Traits> const & s)
{
{ // cin, cout, cerr, and clog
typedef __gnu_cxx::stdio_sync_filebuf<_CharT, _Traits> io_sync_buffer_t;
io_sync_buffer_t * buffer(dynamic_cast<io_sync_buffer_t *>(s.rdbuf()));
if(buffer != nullptr)
{
return ::isatty(fileno(buffer->file()));
}
}
{ // modern versions
typedef std::basic_filebuf<_CharT, _Traits> file_buffer_t;
file_buffer_t * file_buffer(dynamic_cast<file_buffer_t *>(s.rdbuf()));
if(file_buffer != nullptr)
{
typedef detail::our_basic_filebuf<_CharT, _Traits> hack_buffer_t;
hack_buffer_t * buffer(static_cast<hack_buffer_t *>(file_buffer));
if(buffer != nullptr)
{
return ::isatty(fileno(buffer->file()));
}
}
}
{ // older versions
typedef __gnu_cxx::stdio_filebuf<_CharT, _Traits> io_buffer_t;
io_buffer_t * buffer(dynamic_cast<io_buffer_t *>(s.rdbuf()));
if(buffer != nullptr)
{
return ::isatty(fileno(buffer->file()));
}
}
return false;
}
Now, you should be asking: But what is that detail class our_basic_filebuf?!?
And that's a good question. The fact is that the _M_file pointer is protected and there is no file() (or fd()) in the std::basic_filebuf. For that reason, I created a shell class which has access to the protected fields and that way I can return the FILE* pointer.
template<typename _CharT
, typename _Traits = std::char_traits<_CharT>>
class our_basic_filebuf
: public std::basic_filebuf<_CharT, _Traits>
{
public:
std::__c_file * file() throw()
{
return this->_M_file.file();
}
};
This is somewhat ugly, but cleanest I could think off to gain access to the _M_file field.