Exceptional C++ Style 40 New Engineering Puzzles, Programming Problems, and Solutions

Chapter 3. The String Formatters of Manor Farm, Part 2: Standard (or Blindingly Elegant) Alternatives

Difficulty: 6

Our Orwellian look at the mysteries of sprintf concludes with a comparative analysis of snprintf, std::stringstream, std::strstream, and the nonstandard but blindingly elegant boost::lexical_cast.

Guru Question

1. For each of the following alternatives to sprintf, compare and contrast its strengths and weaknesses, using the analysis and example code from Item 2:

   1. snprintf

   2. std::stringstream

   3. std::strstream

   4. boost::lexical_cast

Solution

Alternative #1: snprintf

1. For each of the following alternatives to sprintf, compare and contrast its strengths and weaknesses, using the analysis and example code from Item 2:

   1. snprintf

Of the other choices, sprintf