c++ STL cout source code

Question

I want to see source code of STL std::cout function. I looked at iostream, but I've seen only "extern cout". So, I guess that it's defined somewhere in the library.

I downloaded source code from official site

I extracted it and did:

sh@sh-R528-R728:~/desktop/stl$ grep -F * | grep "cout"

but I got nothing.

What am I doing wrong? Where is the source code?

Answer 1

If you happen to be using GCC, then libstdc++ is your C++ library. Its sources can be found on gcc.gnu.org. cout is defined on line 58 of src/c++98/globals_io.cc.

Answer 2

cout is not part of the STL, so you won't find the source for cout in the STL source.

You probably want to look for the source for your C++ standard library, which was based on the STL, but also contains iostreams. Where that is depends on what platform you're using.