What does the “c” mean in cout, cin, cerr and clog?
What does the "c" mean in the cout, cin, cerr and clog names? I would say char but I haven't found anything to confirm it. fredoverflow The "c" stands for "character" because iostreams map values to and from byte (char) representations. [ Bjarne Stroustrup's C++ Style and Technique FAQ ] JRL I originally guessed console , and this link confirmed it. But after seeing the quote from Stroustrup , it seems that's a misconception, and that the c stands for character . One thing in favor of that theory that can serve as an indicator is the fact that for each stream object (cin, cout, cerr, etc.)