Standard no-op output stream

Question

Is there a way to create an ostream instance which basically doesn\'t do anything ?

For example :

std::ostream dummyStream(...);
dummyStream <<         


        

Answer 1

The basic method voor new stream classes is:

1. Derive a class from std::streambuf;
2. Override the virtual functions in that class. This is where the real work is done. In your case, empty implementations should be good enough.
3. Derive a class from std::ostream with one member, your streambuf class.
4. The constructor of your streamclass should forward the pointer to that member to the base constructor of std::ostream.

I'm afraid you won't get rid of the formatting step, though.

Hopefully this gives you some pointers; I don't have the time to expand this into a full answer, sorry.

Update: See john's answer for details.