Question

Does anyone have any concrete examples with real reasons as to why one would prefer sprintf over stringstream in a C++ environment? Moreover, if you are working in the Microsoft world is there any reason to ever prefer sprintf to _snprintf?

Answer 1

I use sprintf all the time in C++. I find it easier to work with, particularly when I am writing timestamps and other specially-formatted strings. Sure, you can do this with stream modifiers, but it’s so long-winded, you can’t see what the code is achieving at a glance.

It is preferable over _snprintf if you absolutely know that you won’t be overflowing a buffer, and you require the fastest possible write or just don’t want the extra parameter clutter.

Speaking of buffers, that’s the other thing… Usually I would use sprintf or its variants when I have a buffer on the stack or I am writing into an existing buffer in memory. I wouldn’t necessarily want the overhead of allocating and copying string objects about.

Not saying that I don’t use ostringstream — I certainly do (although more often I use istringstream, going the other way)… But I prefer to have two tools at my disposal instead of one.