C++ Using stringstream after << as parameter

Question

Is it possible to write a method that takes a stringstream and have it look something like this,

void method(string st         


        

Answer 1

Ah, took me a minute. Since operator<< is a free function overloaded for all ostream types, it doesn't return a std::stringstream, it returns a std::ostream like you say.

void printStringStream(std::ostream& ss)

Now clearly, general ostreams don't have a .str() member, but they do have a magic way to copy one entire stream to another:

std::cout << ss.rdbuf();

Here's a link to the full code showing that it compiles and runs fine http://ideone.com/DgL5V

EDIT

If you really need a string in the function, I can think of a few solutions:

First, do the streaming seperately:

stringstream var;
var << "Text" << intVar << "More text"<

Second: copy the stream to a string (possible performance issue)

void printStringStream( ostream& t)
{
    std::stringstream ss;
    ss << t.rdbuf();
    method(ss.str());
}

Third: make the other function take a stream too