std::cout, std::wcout

 

C++

Language

Standard library headers

Concepts

Utilities library

Strings library

Containers library

Algorithms library

Iterators library

Numerics library

Input/output library

Localizations library

Regular expressions library (C++11)

Atomic operations library (C++11)

Thread support library (C++11)

 

Input/output library

I/O manipulators

C-style I/O

Buffers

basic_streambuf

basic_filebuf

basic_stringbuf

strstreambuf (deprecated)

Streams

Abstractions

ios_base

basic_ios

basic_istream

basic_ostream

basic_iostream

File I/O

basic_ifstream

basic_ofstream

basic_fstream

String I/O

basic_istringstream

basic_ostringstream

basic_stringstream

Array I/O

istrstream (deprecated)

ostrstream (deprecated)

strstream (deprecated)

Types

streamoff

streamsize

fpos

Error category interface

iostream_category (C++11)

io_errc (C++11)

 

std::basic_ostream

Global objects
cout wcout	cerr wcerr	clog wclog
Member functions
basic_ostream::basic_ostream
basic_ostream::~basic_ostream
basic_ostream::operator= (C++11)
Formatted input
basic_ostream::operator<<
Unformatted input
basic_ostream::put
basic_ostream::write
Positioning
basic_ostream::tellp
basic_ostream::seekp
Miscellaneous
basic_ostream::flush
basic_ostream::swap (C++11)
Member classes
basic_ostream::sentry
Non-member functions
operator<<(std::basic_ostream)

 

Defined in header <iostream>
extern std::ostream cout;	(1)
extern std::wostream wcout;	(2)

The global objects std::cout and std::wcout control output to a stream buffer of implementation-defined type (derived from std::streambuf), associated with the standard C output stream stdout.

These objects are guaranteed to be constructed before the first constructor of a static object is called and they are guaranteed to outlive the last destructor of a static object, so that it is always possible to write to std::cout in user code.

Unless sync_with_stdio(false) has been issued, it is safe to concurrently access these objects from multiple threads for both formatted and unformatted output.

Once initialized, std::cout is tie()'d to std::cin and std::wcout is tie()'d to std::wcin, meaning that any input operation on std::cin executes std::cout.flush() (via std::basic_istream::sentry's constructor).

Once initialized, std::cout is also tie()'d to std::cerr and std::wcout is tie()'d to std::wcerr, meaning that any output operation on std::cerr executes std::cout.flush() (via std::basic_ostream::sentry's constructor) (since C++11)

Example

run this code

#include <iostream>
struct Foo {
    int n;
    Foo() {
       std::cout << "static constructor\n";
    }
    ~Foo() {
       std::cout << "static destructor\n";
    }
};
Foo f; // static object
int main()
{
    std::cout << "main function\n";
}

Output:

static constructor
main function
static destructor

See also

Init	initializes standard stream objects (public member class of std::ios_base)
clog wclog	writes to the standard C error stream stderr (global object)
cout wcout	writes to the standard C output stream stdout (global object)