Standard C++ IOStreams and Locales: Advanced Programmer's Guide and Reference (Hardcover)

by Angelika Langer (Author), Klaus Kreft (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Aimed at the advanced C++ programmer, Standard C++ IOStreams and Locales explains the internals of how C++ streams work and provides support for internationalization. It explains the inner details of architecture and design of these important built-in C++ objects, and it's a reference to all relevant classes and methods.

This book effectively reveals the inner workings of the entire stream class library in today's Standard C++ in two ways: First, it explains the design principles and internal function of these stream classes, whether for simple console or file I/O or for more advanced topics like memory streams. There's coverage of I/O basics (manipulators, stream flags, and other built-in features) for everyday programming with streams. The book also does an excellent job of delving into the nitty-gritty details of these classes (which most of us know only on the surface). Examples include a custom date class that will cooperate with existing stream libraries and create new "facets"--output rules that customize data for particular languages or "locales."

Besides an in-depth guide to what streams do by default and some hints for adding your own classes to work with them, the text also contains over 200 pages of reference material on every C++ stream and locale class, organized by header files. (These sections will arguably be the most useful for the working C++ developer.)

Like the support for template classes, the Standard Library's support for streams is powerful but until now, anyway, not easily accessible to ordinary programmers. For anyone who already knows the fundamentals of streams and is seeking to do more, this title fills a useful niche. It is an authoritative and densely packed source of technical detail on built-in C++ classes. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: Standard C++ predefined streams, input and output operators, manipulators, locale basics, formatted input, stream state flags, file streams, in-memory I/O, stream positioning, synchronizing streams, stream class architecture, stream buffer classes, character types, wide character support, stream and stream buffer iterators, custom stream classes for user-defined types, inserters and extractors, user-defined manipulators, customizing stream and stream buffer classes, internationalization and localization, standard facets, user-defined facets, stream and locale class reference.

Review
"Langer and Kreft have an international book that applies to the United States and the rest of the world the way they address internationalization." -- C. Tondo, T&T TechWorks, Inc.

"The combination of usage guide and reference manual is good. This book is particularly relevant for anyone who needs to internationalize their programs input and output to exhibit reasonable and expected behavior, language, monetary and numeric formatting and syntax. In today's global economy, internationalized behavior is a highly desirable goal." -- Mary Dageforde, Dageforde Consulting

"This is THE book on streams. There is nothing whatsoever like this on the market, and anyone who needs to I18n/Localization will eat this up. I found these chapters readable and informative." -- Chuck Allison, Consulting Editor, C/C++ Users Journal

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 672 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional (February 10, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201183951
• ISBN-13: 978-0201183955
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #847,982 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hidden Treasures, February 2, 2001

By	Klaus Wittlich (Cologne, Germany) - See all my reviews

The reason why I bought this book was the wish to learn more about the C++ Standard. When I held the book in my hand the first time I was not shure if it would be worth the time reading it. It seemed only be useful for a DOS - like software, not for my GUI problems.

So I was very surprised in a good sense to read about ideas how to use IOStreams for GUI - internationalization (I18N), described on pages 175 and 225. The IOStreams library, as it is described by the authors, is a better answer to my I18N - problems than all other three GUI - libraries I know. It offers more flexibility.

An other treasure was the techniqe of two-phase polymorphic dispatch described in this excellent book. This technique allows me a much more flexible design than in the past. If the customer asked for new features I often had to change my class hierarchy (and all classes in it) by adding new virtual functions. It is cumbersome if it is code of a library. The two-phase polymorphic dispatch shows an alternative.

The third (but not the last) treasure are the appendices. They are a good reference for C++ refinements.

The thought I perhaps would not have read this book worries me, I had missed a chance.

Many thanks to the authors writing such an excellent book.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required Ownership for C++ programmers, May 1, 2000

By	G. Powell (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This book is it. There is no other text which covers the full I/O Streams library as of the ISO C++99 standard. B. Stroustrup's book "The C++ Programming language" has one chapter of 50+ pages on streams. Its enough to get you started, but not enough if you want to make roll your own. Your other choice is to comb back issues of C++ Report and C/C++ User's Journal for the relevent information. (And know enough to ignore the articles that do it wrong. Ok maybe wrong is too strong a word, but now that you have the option to understand how the streams library is built you can use it the way it was intended.)

There is now no reason ANY programmer should create a new ostream class by inheriting from basic_ostream<>. The I/O streams library was designed to be extended by programmers. Read this book and learn how to do it so that you don't have to re-write every sub member as a forward to the actual class.

As for Locales, there is a chapter in the latest version of B.S's book as an Appendix. Or about 1/4th of this book is devoted to how that mechanism works.

Buy it. You need it. Without it you are programming by guess and by golly.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book on iostreams, March 11, 2000

By A Customer

Calling this book "good" is an under statement. There is simply no other book that covers the iostream library to the level of detail found here. This is just an awesome book.

The text has been a joy to read. Not exactly light reading but worth it. This book serves well as a tutorial and reference guide to the iostream. I haven't yet read the section on Locales but expect it to be of the same caliber.

The last time a C++ book had such an impression was "The Annotated C++ Reference Manual" of many years ago. This book ranks right up there.

Clearly, serious C++ developers will want to have this book in their C++ reference collection.