Re: cannot write std::map via ostream_iterator? Organization: ...

From:
LR <lruss@superlink.net>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Fri, 29 Oct 2010 08:15:21 CST
Message-ID:
<4cc9c2ac$0$2444$cc2e38e6@news.uslec.net>
James K. Lowden wrote:

Can you tell me why the program below does not compile?


std::ostream_iterator won't find the operator<< you want to use in the
global namespace.

I understand that ostream_iterator::operator=(rhs) calls
operator<<(ostream&, rhs) and as far as I'm concerned that operator is
declared, right after the typedef. But when two compilers disagree with
me, I usually like to admit I'm wrong.

It smells like a const problem, but it must be possible to write
std::pair<const string, string> to an ostream via an iterator. (Or
perhaps it has to do with the context of the template instantiation?)


Yes.

Here's the workaround I came up with.

#include <iostream>
#include <iterator>
#include <algorithm>
#include <map>
#include <string>
#include <utility>

typedef std::map<std::string,std::string> map_ss;

// ostream_iterator won't find this
// in the global namespace
std::ostream &operator<<(
     std::ostream& os,
     const map_ss::value_type& elem
) {
     // or however it should be formatted.
     os << "(" << elem.first << "," << elem.second << ")";
     return os;
}

// so we fake it by adding some namespace indirection.
namespace fake_pair {
struct pair {
     typedef ::map_ss::value_type pair_ss;
     const pair_ss &p_;
     pair(const pair_ss &p) : p_(p) {}
};

std::ostream &operator<<(std::ostream &o, const pair &p) {
     return ::operator<<(o,p.p_);
}
}

int main()
{
     map_ss ml;

     ml["hello"] = "world"; // see if something prints.

     std::copy(
         ml.begin(),
         ml.end(),
         std::ostream_iterator<fake_pair::pair>(std::cout)
     );
}

FWIW the above compiles and runs with VS8 and compiles with
http://www.comeaucomputing.com/tryitout/

If need be, fake_name::pair, fake_name::operator<< and ::operator<<
above, can be made into templates.

I had to search a bit to find the problem. I googled(tm) for
ostream_iterator namespace, and I found some similar problems I'm sure
there's a better one than mine out there.

http://accu.org/index.php/journals/242 which has a nice link to
http://www.boostpro.com/writing/n1691.html

http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.191244.5

It wasn't hard to convince myself that the problem is with namespaces
and lookup, I tried (code below typed from memory):

std::ostream &operator<<(std::ostream &o, const std::pair<int,int> &p) {
    o << p.first << "," << p.second;
    return o;
}

int main() {
     std::ostream_iterator<std::pair<int,int> > os(std::cout);
     os = std::pair<int,int>(1,2);
}

and also tried this example with operator<< in the xyx namespace and
then in the global namespace,

namespace xyz {
     class U {};
     std::ostream &operator<<(std::ostream &o, const U &) {
         o << "(xyz::U)";
         return o;
     }
}
int main() {
     std::ostream_iterator<xyz::U> os(std::cout);
     os = xyz::U();
     std::cout << xyz::U() << std::endl;
}

HTH

LR

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