C++ non null terminated char array outputting

Question

I was trying to output a not null terminated char array to a file.

Actual thing is, I am receiving packets and then printing their fields.

Now as these field

Answer 1

This works, but isn't safe against accidentally calling the standard char* version of operator<<:

#include 

template 
std::ostream& operator<< ( std::ostream& out, const char ( & data ) [N] )
{
    out.write ( data, N ); 
    // or out.write ( data, strnlen ( data, N ) ); 
    // if you want to stop at a '\0' in the data
    return out;
}


struct Foo {
    char   one[5];
    char   two[1];
    char   three[5];
};

int main ( void )
{
    using namespace std;

    Foo foo = {
        { 'h', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o' }, 
        { ' ' }, 
        {'w', 'o', 'r', 'l', 'd'} };

    cout << foo.one;
    cout << foo.two;
    cout << foo.three;
    cout << endl;
}

This is safer, using a maxw type which limits the length of the next char* output:

struct maxw {
    unsigned n;
    maxw ( unsigned n ) : n ( n ) { }
};

struct maxw_stream {
    std::ostream& stream;
    unsigned n;
    maxw_stream ( std::ostream& stream, unsigned n ) :
            stream ( stream ),
            n ( n ) {
    }
};

maxw_stream operator<< ( std::ostream& out, const maxw& m )
{
    return maxw_stream ( out, m.n );
}

std::ostream& operator<< ( const maxw_stream& out, const char* data )
{
    out.stream.write ( data, strnlen ( data, out.n ) );
    return out.stream;
}

// eg:
cout << maxw(4) << "Hello World!"  << endl;
// Hell\n
cout << maxw(100) << "Hello World!" << endl;
// Hello World!\n