What use is there for 'ends' these days?

Question

I came across a subtle bug a couple of days ago where the code looked something like this:

ostringstream ss;
int anInt( 7 );

ss << anInt << \"HA         


        

Answer 1

There are some APIs that expect a "string array" with multiple zero terminated strings, a double zero to mark the end. Raymond Chang just recently blogged about it, most of all to demonstrate how often that this gets fumbled.

Answer 2

You've essentially answered your own question is as much detail that's needed. I certainly can't think of any reason to use std::ends when std::string and std::stringstream handle all that for you.

So, to answer your question explicitly, no, there is no reason to use std::ends in a std::string only environment.