[ILUG] C Vs C++

[Kenn Humborg]

On Sat, Nov 27, 1999 at 04:54:04PM +0000, kevin lyda wrote:
> Mel wrote:
> > cout instead of ifstream
> > fstream instead of fopen
> > new instead of malloc
> 
> i take this as libc's stdio vs. c++'s stl streams.  (i'm not a c++
> person, but my understanding is that there used to be a c++ lib -
> #include <streams.h> for example - and now there's the stl with #include
> <streams>)  one argument might be efficiency.  stdio has been studied a
> great deal and the idea has been to reduce data copying.  now how much
> studying has been put into making the stl efficient?  dunno.

You are mixing up the C++ Standard Library (the analog of the 
standard header files in ANSI C providing I/O, string support,
and other stuff) and the Standard Template Library (STL) which 
provides generic container, iterator and algorithm classes
such as lists, queues, maps, sorts, and other stuff.  STL 
uses C++ templates to provide type-safe support for any data
types.

C++ I/O streams are nothing to do with STL.

Mind you, as far as I'm concerned, << means left shift,
not "format in some hard-to-specify way for shoving up
an ostream".  But that's just a personal taste thing...

And the difference between #include <streams.h> and 
#include <streams> is that the .h version puts the 
definitions into the global namespace, whereas the
newer non-.h version puts them in the std:: namespace.

So if you do a #include <streams>, you'll have to do 
either 

   using std;
   cout << "hello, world\n";

or 

   std::cout << "hello, world\n";

Later,
Kenn