C++ String Streams

String streams are similar to the <iostream> and <fstream> libraries, except that string streams allow you to perform I/O on strings instead of streams. The <sstream> library provides functionality similar to c/io/sscanf and c/io/sprintf in the standard C library.

Three main classes are available in <sstream>:

• stringstream - allows input and output
• istringstream - allows input only
• ostringstream - allows output only

String streams are actually subclasses of iostreams, so all of the functions available for iostreams are also available for stringstream. See the C++ I/O functions for more information.

In addition, string streams also supply the following functions:

Constructors	create new string streams
Operators	read from and write to string streams
rdbuf	get the buffer for a string stream
str	get or set the stream's string