C++ convert simple values to string

Question

Right now I use the following piece of code to dummily convert basic types (int, long, char[], this kind of stuff) to std::string for further processing:

template<class T> constexpr std::string stringify(const T& t) {     std::stringstream ss;     ss << t;     return ss.str(); } 

however I don't like the fact that it depends on std::stringstream. I tried using std::to_string (from C++11's repertoire) however it chokes on char[] variables.

Is there a simple way offering an elegant solution for this problem?

Answer 1

As far as I know the only way of doing this is by specialising the template by the parameter type with SFINAE.

You need to include the type_traits.

So instead of your code use something like this:

template<class T>  typename std::enable_if<std::is_fundamental<T>::value, std::string>::type stringify(const T& t)   {     return std::to_string(t);   }  template<class T>   typename std::enable_if<!std::is_fundamental<T>::value, std::string>::type  stringify(const T& t)   {     return std::string(t);   } 

this test works for me:

int main() {   std::cout << stringify(3.0f);   std::cout << stringify("Asdf"); } 

Important note: the char arrays passed to this function need to be null terminated!

As noted in the comments by yakk you can get rid of the null termination with:

template<size_t N> std::string stringify( char(const& s)[N] ) {      if (N && !s[N-1]) return {s, s+N-1};     else return {s, s+N};  }