What is the difference between cout, cerr, clog of iostream header in c++? When to use which one?

Question

I tried researching the difference between cout, cerr and clog on the internet but couldn\'t find a perfect answer. I still am not cle

Answer 1

The difference of these 3 streams is buffering.

1. With cerr, the output flushs
   • immediately (because cerr does not use buffer).
2. With clog, the output flushs
   • after you finish your current function.
   • explicitly call the function flush.
3. With cout, the output flushs
   • after you have call to any output streams (cout, cerr, clog).
   • after you finish your current function.
   • explicitly call the function flush.

Please check the following code, and run DEBUG through 3 lines: f(std::clog), f(std::cerr), f(std::out), then open 3 output files to see what happened. You can swap these 3 lines to see what will happen.

#include 
#include 
#include 

void f(std::ostream &os)
{
    std::cin.clear(); // clear EOF flags
    std::cin.seekg(0, std::cin.beg); // seek to begin

    std::string line;
    while(std::getline(std::cin, line))   //input from the file in.txt
        os << line << "\n";   //output to the file out.txt
}

void test()
{
    std::ifstream in("in.txt");
    std::ofstream out("out.txt"), err("err.txt"), log("log.txt");
    std::streambuf *cinbuf = std::cin.rdbuf(), *coutbuf = std::cout.rdbuf(), *cerrbuf = std::cerr.rdbuf(),
                    *clogbuf = std::clog.rdbuf();

    std::cin.rdbuf(in.rdbuf()); //redirect std::cin to in.txt!
    std::cout.rdbuf(out.rdbuf()); //redirect std::cout to out.txt!
    std::cerr.rdbuf(err.rdbuf());
    std::clog.rdbuf(log.rdbuf());


    f(std::clog);
    f(std::cerr);
    f(std::cout);

    std::cin.rdbuf(cinbuf);
    std::cout.rdbuf(coutbuf);
    std::cerr.rdbuf(cerrbuf);
    std::clog.rdbuf(clogbuf);
}

int main()
{
    test();
    std::cout << "123";
}