Thread: Cin & Cout VS. Scanf & Printf

Originally posted by blackrat364
printf may be a bit easier for the incredibly complex things like that, but for simply displaying a string or an int, or getting either from the user, cin and cout are easier.

This is what we call the DUH factor. But as a developer, I rarely need to simply display a value. I have to display values in a way that the user can use, which means formatting, sometimes extensive formatting.

Originally posted by mart_man00
If C++ is a superset of C why did they even bother with cin/cout?

Because cin/cout are designed to be objects, part of the OO of C++. printf et al are not OO, they are the procedural way of doing I/O

C++ at times seems more like a different language/knock off.

It is a different language, but it kept the base it was designed from. This makes it difficult sometimes to keep in one style. For example, a fully C++ program can fall back on C's I/O routine, and you can write a program completely in C and use the I/O from C++. I see a lot of hybrid code.

The whole object oriented stuff sounds great, I think ill try to avoid c++ as long as possible and give Objective C a shot. I havnt heard much, but i havent heard that they cheated either.

Unless programming is just a hobby, don't. C++ is where the industry is. It's harder and harder to find positions that want just a C programmer.

cin and cout are objects because you can do things such as
cin.getline();

(just for an example. They have numerous other methods as well)

Originally posted by XSquared
This won't work.

Code:

cout << setfill('0') << setw(2) << hex << hval << setfill(' ') << dec << setw(12) << dval
      << "  val=" << setw(7) << setprecision(3) << fval << endl;

http://cplusplus.com/ref/iostream/io...precision.html

Thanks XSquared. Funny thing is, it prints like printf() on my old compiler.

Which brings up a question:
Is there any easy way to print money amounts with cout? If you use floats, it appears not.