To end this post, I say that structures and classes are the same thing basically, and structures are the newbie, old-fashioned C way, while classes are the grown-up, C++ way.

Kinda like printf and cout . Whats the difference, except for the fact that printf is C and cout is C++. Same for scanf and cin .

THE END

Just to extend the post a little bit more =)

How many does realy prefer cout over printf?

I just can´t stand the syntax for cout..it´s not c syntax it´s something else....printf just looks better

//mats

I think that question falls under the general blanket of what people are talking about in this topic. It''s a personal prefrence. Use whatever you like, unless your employed to do this and then go with what standards you are provided with.

Mike Barela
mbarela@earthlink.net

I like the streams syntax. There''s less redundancy, more type-checking, and it becomes easy to make my own streams and use them in the same way.

Actually, I like printf over cout since it looks like your old-fashioned function, not this new dang-fangled streaming magigy

But surely you overload operators at some point? It''s the same thing really.

My preference is printf over cout. It just seems easier to use (from a formatted output point-of-view) than cout''s interface. If you look at how you limit the length of outputed variables in cout you might agree with me. You only need to use a number in printf, instead of a function for cout. (At least, that''s what I think it is...it uses parentheses, anyway...)

About the type checking, I will say that cout is probably checked better than printf. At least in VC++ 6.0...I know that DJGPP, with all errors and warnings enabled, will complain if you use the wrong types for a given place in a format string. In VC++ I''ve gotten character strings printed through a decimal format (well, almost...it crashes the program at that point) without so much as a complaint from the compiler.

In any case, as with almost everything, it is personal preference.

I like printf better... no particular reason except that it just looks more like my other code. I also like to use sprintf, fscanf etc. because they all use the same format.

- Daniel
my homepage

I prefer neither, since they won''t work properly in a windoze windowed proggie anyways .

Printf syntax is nice ''cause of
CString.Format()
and TRACE(),
stream syntax takes some getting used to but does the job equally well.


#pragma DWIM // Do What I Mean!
~ Mad Keith ~
**I use Software Mode**

Dragonskin: If DJGPP gives warnings on invalid printf fields, that''s quite neat, but obviously not part of the standard (technically, the function just asks for a const char*, what you put in it is your problem). Most compilers aren''t that smart (nor are they required to be).

Deakin and MadKeithV: I like to use streams because, just like fprintf, sprintf, printf, you can use them for many different purposes, not just console output. Thus, they can, and do, work under Windows.

//To write to the standard output:
cout << "Some text.";

//To write to a file
ofstream("file.txt") theFile;
theFile << "Some text.";

//To write to an in-memory location
stringstream theBuffer;
theBuffer << "Some text.";

When you learn one, you learn them all, pretty much. An extra point: the printf family is technically interpreted at runtime for the type information, whereas streams are fixed at compile time. This could result in faster execution.