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

For ease of writing objects that can be inserted into a stream, all these classes overload operator<< on ostream&. (Operator overloading can be used by subclasses, if no closer match exists.) These operator<< overloads all return ostream&.

What you can do is make the function take an ostream& and dynamic_cast<> it to stringstream&. If the wrong type is passed in, bad_cast is thrown.

void printStringStream(ostream& os) {
    stringstream &ss = dynamic_cast(os);
    cout << ss.str();
}

Note: static_cast<> can be used, it will be faster, but not so bug proof in the case you passed something that is not a stringstream.