How to print (using cout) a number in binary form?

Question

The easiest way is probably to create an std::bitset representing the value, then stream that to cout.

#include <bitset>
...

char a = -58;
std::bitset<8> x(a);
std::cout << x << '\n';

short c = -315;
std::bitset<16> y(c);
std::cout << y << '\n';

Use on-the-fly conversion to std::bitset. No temporary variables, no loops, no functions, no macros.

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#include <iostream>
#include <bitset>

int main() {
    int a = -58, b = a>>3, c = -315;

    std::cout << "a = " << std::bitset<8>(a)  << std::endl;
    std::cout << "b = " << std::bitset<8>(b)  << std::endl;
    std::cout << "c = " << std::bitset<16>(c) << std::endl;
}

Prints:

a = 11000110
b = 11111000
c = 1111111011000101

In C++20 you'll be able to use std::format to do this:

unsigned char a = -58;
std::cout << std::format("{:b}", a);

Output:

11000110

In the meantime you can use the {fmt} library, std::format is based on. {fmt} also provides the print function that makes this even easier and more efficient (godbolt):

unsigned char a = -58;
fmt::print("{:b}", a);

Disclaimer: I'm the author of {fmt} and C++20 std::format.

If you want to display the bit representation of any object, not just an integer, remember to reinterpret as a char array first, then you can print the contents of that array, as hex, or even as binary (via bitset):

#include <iostream>
#include <bitset>
#include <climits>

template<typename T>
void show_binrep(const T& a)
{
    const char* beg = reinterpret_cast<const char*>(&a);
    const char* end = beg + sizeof(a);
    while(beg != end)
        std::cout << std::bitset<CHAR_BIT>(*beg++) << ' ';
    std::cout << '\n';
}
int main()
{
    char a, b;
    short c;
    a = -58;
    c = -315;
    b = a >> 3;
    show_binrep(a);
    show_binrep(b);
    show_binrep(c);
    float f = 3.14;
    show_binrep(f);
}

Note that most common systems are little-endian, so the output of show_binrep(c) is not the 1111111 011000101 you expect, because that's not how it's stored in memory. If you're looking for value representation in binary, then a simple cout << bitset<16>(c) works.

Is there a standard way in C++ to show the binary representation in memory of a number [...]?

No. There's no std::bin, like std::hex or std::dec, but it's not hard to output a number binary yourself:

You output the left-most bit by masking all the others, left-shift, and repeat that for all the bits you have.

(The number of bits in a type is sizeof(T) * CHAR_BIT.)

Similar to what is already posted, just using bit-shift and mask to get the bit; usable for any type, being a template (only not sure if there is a standard way to get number of bits in 1 byte, I used 8 here).

#include<iostream>
#include <climits>

template<typename T>
void printBin(const T& t){
    size_t nBytes=sizeof(T);
    char* rawPtr((char*)(&t));
    for(size_t byte=0; byte<nBytes; byte++){
        for(size_t bit=0; bit<CHAR_BIT; bit++){
            std::cout<<(((rawPtr[byte])>>bit)&1);
        }
    }
    std::cout<<std::endl;
};

int main(void){
    for(int i=0; i<50; i++){
        std::cout<<i<<": ";
        printBin(i);
    }
}

Reusable function:

template<typename T>
static std::string toBinaryString(const T& x)
{
    std::stringstream ss;
    ss << std::bitset<sizeof(T) * 8>(x);
    return ss.str();
}

Usage:

int main(){
  uint16_t x=8;
  std::cout << toBinaryString(x);
}

This works with all kind of integers.