Using stringstream in place of string? - C++

Question

I've been given a homework assignment to write a program in C++, but we're not allowed to use the string class. However, we are allowed to use the iostream library, including stringstream. I was thinking of using stringstream where I would have used string for building my classes, returning from functions, etc.

Does this sound like a good idea to you? Any pitfalls I should be aware of?

The only way to get stuff out of a stringstream is to convert it to a string. — workmad3
– workmad3, Commented Jun 1, 2009 at 7:05
This question is difficult to answer, since we don't know what was the reason you're not allowed to use the string class. Was the point of the assignment to find a clever way to use another standard class instead of the string? Or were you supposed to implement your own string class? — Igor Krivokon
– Igor Krivokon, Commented Jun 1, 2009 at 7:28
It's an assignment about polymorphism. We're building a shop database which stores a list of products and shopping baskets.They're just being stingy by not letting us use strings. I think they expect us to use char* or some other way of storing an array of chars. But we're free to figure out other creative solutions. — Meir
– Meir, Commented Jun 1, 2009 at 7:51
@workmad3 - Can't I send it directly to cout? or to a char or char[] or another stringstream? — Meir
– Meir, Commented Jun 1, 2009 at 7:52
Hopefully you only have to deal with ASCII characters. Think about wrapping vector<char> (or whatever you end up choosing) in your own string class — Harald Scheirich
– Harald Scheirich, Commented Jun 1, 2009 at 11:07

score 10 · Accepted Answer · 2009-06-01 07:01:43Z

10

You could also use vector<char>. It's a good alternative to string. As Scott Meyers says in his "Effective STL" book:

Third, consider using a vector<char> instead of a string, vector implementations are not allowed to be reference counted, so hidden multithreading performance issues fail to arise. Of course, you forgo string's fancy member functions if you switch to vector<char>, but most of that functionality is available through STL algorithms anyway, so you're-not so much giving up functionality as you are trading one syntax for another.

I think the main problems that could arise from using stringstream are that it's not strictly a container. I'm not sure if it is possible to use algorithms and other regular STL stuff with streams.

edited Jun 1, 2009 at 7:01

answered Jun 1, 2009 at 6:56

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Zeroshade · Accepted Answer · 2009-08-19 00:37:40Z

0

If the situation is a shop database without strings, you could just simply use an enum.

enum {
     Prod1,
     Prod2,
     Prod3
};

Which means you can just pass integers around as identifiers and then just have a print function with a switch statement.

void PrintProd(int product) {
    switch(product) {
         case Prod1: 
              cout << "Product 1" << endl;
              break;
         case Prod2:
              cout << "Product 2" << endl;
              break;
     // etc.
     }
}

This allows you to bypass a lot of trouble. If you don't mind dealing with the heap, a vector of char* allocating the product names with the id's being the index into the vector would work too.

answered Aug 19, 2009 at 0:37

Zeroshade

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