How to read entire stream into a std::string?

Question

I\'m trying to read an entire stream (multiple lines) into a string.

I\'m using this code, and it works, but it\'s offending my sense of style... Surely there\'s an

Answer 1

Well, if you are looking for a simple and 'readable' way to do it. I would recomend add/use some high level framework on your project. For that I's always use Poco and Boost on all my projects. In this case, with Poco:

    string text;
    FileStream fstream(TEXT_FILE_PATH);
    StreamCopier::copyToString(fstream, text);

Answer 2

You could do

std::string s;
std::ostringstream os;
os<<stream.rdbuf();
s=os.str();

but I don't know if it's more efficient.

Alternative version:

std::string s;
std::ostringstream os;
stream>>os.rdbuf();
s=os.str();

Answer 3

Perhaps this 1 line C++11 solution:

std::vector<char> s{std::istreambuf_iterator<char>{in},{}};

Answer 4

You can try using something from algorithms. I have to get ready for work but here's a very quick stab at things (there's got to be a better way):

copy( istreambuf_iterator<char>(stream), istreambuf_iterator<char>(), back_inserter(s) );

Answer 5

What about to use getline with delimiter? The next code helps me to read whole std::cin into string on ubuntu with g++-10.

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

using namespace std;

int main() {
    string s;

    getline(cin, s, {}); //the whole stream into variable s

    return 0;
}

Answer 6

How about

std::istreambuf_iterator<char> eos;
std::string s(std::istreambuf_iterator<char>(stream), eos);

(could be a one-liner if not for MVP)

post-2011 edit, this approach is now spelled

std::string s(std::istreambuf_iterator<char>(stream), {});