Defined Terms

condition state Flags and associated functions usable by any of the stream classes that indicate whether a given stream is usable.

file mode Flags defined by the fstream classes that are specified when opening a file and control how a file can be used.

file stream Stream object that reads or writes a named file. In addition to the normal iostream operations, file streams also define open and close members. The open member takes a string or a C-style character string that names the file to open and an optional open mode argument. The close member closes the file to which the stream is attached. It must be called before another file can be opened.

fstream File stream that reads and writes to the same file. By default fstreams are opened with in and out mode set.

ifstream File stream that reads an input file. By default ifstreams are opened with in mode set.

inheritance Programming feature that lets a type inherit the interface of another type. The ifstream and istringstream classes inherit from istream and the ofstream and ostringstream classes inherit from ostream. Chapter 15 covers inheritance.

istringstream String stream that reads a given string.

ofstream File stream that writes to an output file. By default, ofstreams are opened with out mode set.

ostringstream String stream that writes to a given string.

string stream Stream object that reads or writes a string. In addition to the normal iostream operations, string streams define an overloaded member named str. Calling str with no arguments returns the string to which the string stream is attached. Calling it with a string attaches the string stream to a copy of that string.

stringstream String stream that reads and writes to a given string.