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Iostreams Library

The iostream classes implement most of the features of AT&T version 2.0 iostream library classes, and most of the features of the ANSI X3J16 library draft (which is based on the AT&T design). However they only support streams of type, char, rather than using a template.

This documentation is meant as a reference; for tutorial material on iostreams, see the corresponding section of any recent popular introduction to C++. As a general introduction to the GNU iostream library, libio, see Operators and Default Streams. See the following for each specific iostream class.

• Shared properties: class ios
• Managing output streams: class ostream
• Managing input streams: class istream
• Input and output together: class iostream

See Classes for Files and Strings for reading and writing in memory and files.

The istream and ostream classes are meant to handle conversion between objects in your program and their textual representation. By contrast, the underlying streambuf class is for transferring raw bytes between your program, and input sources or output sinks. Different streambuf subclasses connect to different kinds of sources and sinks. See Using the streambuf Layer for more detailed information.

libio is distributed with a complete implementation of the ANSI C stdio facility, using streambuf objects. See C Input and Output and Wrappers for C stdio for more details.

See for Licensing terms for libio licensing terms and Acknowledgments for acknowledgments of the iostream classes.