13.10. Wrap-Up

This chapter summarized how C++ performs input/output using streams. You learned about the stream-I/O classes and objects, as well as the stream I/O template class hierarchy. We discussed ostream’s formatted and unformatted output capabilities performed by the put and write functions. You learned about istream’s formatted and unformatted input capabilities performed by the eof, get, getline, peek, putback, ignore and read functions. We discussed stream manipulators and member functions that perform formatting tasks—dec, oct, hex and setbase for displaying integers; precision and setprecision for controlling floating-point precision; and width and setw for setting field width. You also learned additional formatting iostream manipulators and member functions—showpoint for displaying decimal point and trailing zeros; left, right and internal for justification; fill and setfill for padding; scientific and fixed for displaying floating-point numbers in scientific and fixed notation; uppercase for uppercase/lowercase control; boolalpha for specifying boolean format; and flags and fmtflags for resetting the format state.

In the next chapter, you’ll learn about file processing, including how persistent data is stored and how to manipulate it.