How to concatenate a std::string and an int

Question

I thought this would be really simple, but it's presenting some difficulties. If I have

std::string name = "John";
int age = 21;

How do I combine them to get a single string "John21"?

Answer 1

In alphabetical order:

std::string name = "John";
int age = 21;
std::string result;

// 1. with Boost
result = name + boost::lexical_cast<std::string>(age);

// 2. with C++11
result = name + std::to_string(age);

// 3. with FastFormat.Format
fastformat::fmt(result, "{0}{1}", name, age);

// 4. with FastFormat.Write
fastformat::write(result, name, age);

// 5. with the {fmt} library
result = fmt::format("{}{}", name, age);

// 6. with IOStreams
std::stringstream sstm;
sstm << name << age;
result = sstm.str();

// 7. with itoa
char numstr[21]; // enough to hold all numbers up to 64-bits
result = name + itoa(age, numstr, 10);

// 8. with sprintf
char numstr[21]; // enough to hold all numbers up to 64-bits
sprintf(numstr, "%d", age);
result = name + numstr;

// 9. with STLSoft's integer_to_string
char numstr[21]; // enough to hold all numbers up to 64-bits
result = name + stlsoft::integer_to_string(numstr, 21, age);

// 10. with STLSoft's winstl::int_to_string()
result = name + winstl::int_to_string(age);

// 11. With Poco NumberFormatter
result = name + Poco::NumberFormatter().format(age);

1. is safe, but slow; requires Boost (header-only); most/all platforms
2. is safe, requires C++11 (to_string() is already included in #include <string>)
3. is safe, and fast; requires FastFormat, which must be compiled; most/all platforms
4. (ditto)
5. is safe, and fast; requires the {fmt} library, which can either be compiled or used in a header-only mode; most/all platforms
6. safe, slow, and verbose; requires #include <sstream> (from standard C++)
7. is brittle (you must supply a large enough buffer), fast, and verbose; itoa() is a non-standard extension, and not guaranteed to be available for all platforms
8. is brittle (you must supply a large enough buffer), fast, and verbose; requires nothing (is standard C++); all platforms
9. is brittle (you must supply a large enough buffer), probably the fastest-possible conversion, verbose; requires STLSoft (header-only); most/all platforms
10. safe-ish (you don't use more than one int_to_string() call in a single statement), fast; requires STLSoft (header-only); Windows-only
11. is safe, but slow; requires Poco C++ ; most/all platforms

Answer 2

In C++11, you can use std::to_string, e.g.:

auto result = name + std::to_string( age );

Answer 3

If you have Boost, you can convert the integer to a string using boost::lexical_cast<std::string>(age).

Another way is to use stringstreams:

std::stringstream ss;
ss << age;
std::cout << name << ss.str() << std::endl;

A third approach would be to use sprintf or snprintf from the C library.

char buffer[128];
snprintf(buffer, sizeof(buffer), "%s%d", name.c_str(), age);
std::cout << buffer << std::endl;

Other posters suggested using itoa. This is NOT a standard function, so your code will not be portable if you use it. There are compilers that don't support it.