Question

When I print a char pointer with printf(), it makes the decision with conversion specifier whether the address should be printed or the whole string according to %u or %s.

But when I want to do the same thing with cout, how will cout decide what should be printed among address and whole string? Here is an example source:

int main()
{
  char ch='a';
  char *cptr=&ch;
  cout<<cptr<<endl;
  return 0;
}

Here, in my GNU compiler, cout is trying to output ch as a string.

How I can get address of ch via cptr using cout?

Answer 1

Overload resolution selects the ostream& operator<<(ostream& o, const char *c); which is used for printing C-style strings. You want the other ostream& operator<<(ostream& o, const void *p); to be selected. You are probably best off with a cast here:

 cout << static_cast<void *>(cptr) << endl;