Question

Is there a way in C++ to check if an ostream object is cout or a ofstream object?

Something like:

ostream& output(ostream& out)
{
    if (out == cout)
        return out;
    else
    {
        out << "something different because its not going to the console" << endl;
        return out;
    }
}

The reason I want to do this, is that I want to overload the << operator to do two different things depending on what type of stream it is used with.

Is it possible to just overload the << operator twice each time with a different type of stream?

Updated to reflect intention better.

Answer 1

It’s possible by checking the stream’s ‘identity’: if ( &out == &cout ) ....

However, I’m in doubt on the usefullness of this test. If your function can handle any output stream, why bother about what stream it is using?