Correctly over-loading a stringbuf to replace cout in a MATLAB mex file

Question

MathWorks currently doesn't allow you to use cout from a mex file when the MATLAB desktop is open because they have redirected stdout. Their current workaround is providing a function, mexPrintf, that they request you use instead. After googling around a bit, I think that it's possible to extend the std::stringbuf class to do what I need. Here's what I have so far. Is this robust enough, or are there other methods I need to overload or a better way to do this? (Looking for portability in a general UNIX environment and the ability to use std::cout as normal if this code is not linked against a mex executable)

class mstream : public stringbuf {
public:
  virtual streamsize xsputn(const char *s, std::streamsize n) 
  {
mexPrintf("*s",s,n);
return basic_streambuf<char, std::char_traits<char>>::xsputn(s,n);
  }
}; 

mstream mout;
outbuf = cout.rdbuf(mout.rdbuf());    

Answer 1

You don't really want to overload std::stringbuf, you want to overload std::streambuf or std::basic_streambuf (if you want to support multiple character types), also you need to override the overflow method as well.

But I also think you need to rethink your solution to your problem.

cout is just an ostream, so if all classes / functions takes an ostream then you can pass in anything you like. e.g. cout, ofstream, etc

If that's too hard then I would create my own version of cout, maybe called mycout that can be defined at either compiler time or runtime time (depending on what you want to do).

A simple solution may be:

#include <streambuf>
#include <ostream>

class mystream : public std::streambuf
{
public:
    mystream() {}

protected:
    virtual int_type overflow(int_type c)
    {
        if(c != EOF)
        {
            char z = c;
            mexPrintf("%c",c);
            return EOF;
        }
        return c;
    }

    virtual std::streamsize xsputn(const char* s, std::streamsize num)
    {
        mexPrintf("*s",s,n);
        return num;
    }
};

class myostream : public std::ostream
{
protected:
    mystream buf;

public:
    myostream() : std::ostream(&buf) {}
};

myostream mycout;

And the cout version could just be:

typedef std::cout mycout;

A runtime version is a bit more work but easily doable.

Answer 2

Shane, thanks very much for your help. Here's my final working implementation.

class mstream : public std::streambuf {
public:
protected:
  virtual std::streamsize xsputn(const char *s, std::streamsize n); 
  virtual int overflow(int c = EOF);
}; 

...

std::streamsize 
mstream::xsputn(const char *s, std::streamsize n) 
{
  mexPrintf("%.*s",n,s);
  return n;
}

int 
mstream::overflow(int c) 
{
    if (c != EOF) {
      mexPrintf("%.1s",&c);
    }
    return 1;
}

...

// Replace the std stream with the 'matlab' stream
// Put this in the beginning of the mex function
mstream mout;
std::streambuf *outbuf = std::cout.rdbuf(&mout); 

...

// Restore the std stream buffer 
std::cout.rdbuf(outbuf); 

Answer 3

I have changed the OP's final implementation a little bit, adding a constructor and destructor. Creating an object of this class automatically replaces the stream buffer in std::cout, and when the object goes out of scope, the original stream buffer is restored. RAII!

class mxstreambuf : public std::streambuf {
   public:
      mxstreambuf() {
         stdoutbuf = std::cout.rdbuf( this );
      }
      ~mxstreambuf() {
         std::cout.rdbuf( stdoutbuf );
      }
   protected:
      virtual std::streamsize xsputn( const char* s, std::streamsize n ) override {
         mexPrintf( "%.*s", n, s );
         return n;
      }
      virtual int overflow( int c = EOF ) override {
         if( c != EOF ) {
            mexPrintf( "%.1s", & c );
         }
         return 1;
      }
   private:
      std::streambuf *stdoutbuf;
};

To use the stream buffer in a MEX-file, simply:

mxstreambuf mout;
std::cout << "Hello World!\n";

... and don't worry about forgetting anything.