Re: [Boost-users] Stupid ostringstream question

From: gast128 (gast128_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-07-30 07:40:07

Bill Lear <rael <at> zopyra.com> writes:

> 
> I have been searching the world in vain for a stringstream that works
> with a static buffer, and does not use the heap for memory allocation.
> We have an application that uses lots (12-16Gb) of memory.  This puts
> a strain on the memory allocation routines, and when we want to create
> a small string we find that stringstream is very, very expensive, and
> sprintf into a static buffer much, much faster.
> 
> Does boost provide anything like this?
> 
> This actually came up when we realized that boost lexical_cast was
> using stringstream.  When we replaced it with sprintf, our runtimes
> (when memory usage was very high) went down significantly.  I should
> also point out that ANYTHING we did with dynamic memory at that point
> in the application (vector::push_back, for example) was hideously
> slow.
> 
> I'd like to have the best of both worlds: the relatively clear
> syntax of the ostringstream inserters, working on a static buffer.
> 
> Any help (code samples especially) appreciated.
> 
> Bill

I wrote some while ago a wrapper which writes to a static buffer and flushes 
then to the debugger output window. One can easily write things like:

dbg_cout << 2 << "Hello" << std::endl

It originates from the book 'Standard C++ IOStreams and Locales' 3.4.1.1.2 and 
is basically an adapter of a 'basic_streambuf'. The iostream library is not 
easy to plug in, and I think that Boost Iostreams helps in this area. 
Unfortunately I haven't worked with it yet.

If you are interested I can mail you the code, but since it is not a Boost 
topic I better not show it here...

wkr,
me