How to convert a number to string and vice versa in C++

Question

Since this question gets asked about every week, this FAQ might help a lot of users.

• How to convert an integer to a string in C++

• how to con

Answer 1

I stole this convienent class from somewhere here at StackOverflow to convert anything streamable to a string:

// make_string
class make_string {
public:
  template 
  make_string& operator<<( T const & val ) {
    buffer_ << val;
    return *this;
  }
  operator std::string() const {
    return buffer_.str();
  }
private:
  std::ostringstream buffer_;
};

And then you use it as;

string str = make_string() << 6 << 8 << "hello";

Quite nifty!

Also I use this function to convert strings to anything streamable, althrough its not very safe if you try to parse a string not containing a number; (and its not as clever as the last one either)

// parse_string
template 
RETURN_TYPE parse_string(const STRING_TYPE& str) {
  std::stringstream buf;
  buf << str;
  RETURN_TYPE val;
  buf >> val;
  return val;
}

Use as:

int x = parse_string("78");

You might also want versions for wstrings.