Inheriting std::istream or equivalent

Question

I need to bridge two libraries over a stream.

QDataStream which is a stream from Qt

and some function from another libraries that looks like this

void read_something(istream& i);

I have no control over how the QDataStream is created and I'm not allowed to change the interface of read_somthing function.

The first thing I can think of is write a class that inherits istream and wraps QDataStream. Have anybody done that before?

If what I thought wasn't the proper way, I wonder what is the best way to achieve that.

Answer 1

What you should do is write a streambuf which uses the QDataStream readBytes and writeBytes to implement its functions. Then register the streambuf into a istream with rdbuf (you can also write an istream descendant which does this when initialized).

Boost contains a library aiming at facilitating the writing of streambuf. It could be simpler to use it than understanding the streambuf interface (personally I never have used it but I've written multiple streambuf; I'll see if I've a example that I can post).

Edit: here is something (commented in French -- it comes from the french FAQ of fr.comp.lang.c++ --, I have no time for translation and think it is better to leave them than to remove them) which wraps FILE* call into a streambuf. This also is a show case of a use of private inheritance: ensuring that what could be a member is initialized before a base class. In the case of IOStream, the base class could as well receive a NULL pointer and then the member init() used to set the streambuf.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <assert.h>

#include <iostream>
#include <streambuf>

// streambuf minimal encapsulant un FILE*
//    - utilise les tampons de FILE donc n'a pas de tampon interne en
//      sortie et a un tampon interne de taille 1 en entree car l'interface
//      de streambuf ne permet pas de faire moins;
//    - ne permet pas la mise en place d'un tampon
//    - une version plus complete devrait permettre d'acceder aux
//      informations d'erreur plus precises de FILE* et interfacer aussi
//      les autres possibilites de FILE* (entre autres synchroniser les
//      sungetc/sputbackc avec la possibilite correspondante de FILE*)

class FILEbuf: public std::streambuf
{
public:

  explicit FILEbuf(FILE* cstream);
  // cstream doit etre non NULL.

protected:

  std::streambuf* setbuf(char_type* s, std::streamsize n);

  int_type overflow(int_type c);
  int      sync();

  int_type underflow();

private:

  FILE*    cstream_;
  char     inputBuffer_[1];
};

FILEbuf::FILEbuf(FILE* cstream)
  : cstream_(cstream)
{
  // le constructeur de streambuf equivaut a
  // setp(NULL, NULL);
  // setg(NULL, NULL, NULL);
  assert(cstream != NULL);
}

std::streambuf* FILEbuf::setbuf(char_type* s, std::streamsize n)
{
  // ne fait rien, ce qui est autorise.  Une version plus complete
  // devrait vraissemblablement utiliser setvbuf
  return NULL;
}

FILEbuf::int_type FILEbuf::overflow(int_type c)
{
  if (traits_type::eq_int_type(c, traits_type::eof())) {
    // la norme ne le demande pas exactement, mais si on nous passe eof
    // la coutume est de faire la meme chose que sync()
    return (sync() == 0
        ? traits_type::not_eof(c)
        : traits_type::eof());
  } else {
    return ((fputc(c, cstream_) != EOF)
        ? traits_type::not_eof(c)
        : traits_type::eof());
  }
}

int FILEbuf::sync()
{
  return (fflush(cstream_) == 0
      ? 0
      : -1);
}

FILEbuf::int_type FILEbuf::underflow()
{
  // Assurance contre des implementations pas strictement conformes a la
  // norme qui guaranti que le test est vrai.  Cette guarantie n'existait
  // pas dans les IOStream classiques.
  if (gptr() == NULL || gptr() >= egptr()) {
    int gotted = fgetc(cstream_);
    if (gotted == EOF) {
      return traits_type::eof();
    } else {
      *inputBuffer_ = gotted;
      setg(inputBuffer_, inputBuffer_, inputBuffer_+1);
      return traits_type::to_int_type(*inputBuffer_);
    }
  } else {
    return traits_type::to_int_type(*inputBuffer_);
  }
}

// ostream minimal facilitant l'utilisation d'un FILEbuf
// herite de maniere privee de FILEbuf, ce qui permet de s'assurer
// qu'il est bien initialise avant std::ostream

class oFILEstream: private FILEbuf, public std::ostream 
{
public:
  explicit oFILEstream(FILE* cstream);
};

oFILEstream::oFILEstream(FILE* cstream)
  : FILEbuf(cstream), std::ostream(this)
{
}

// istream minimal facilitant l'utilisation d'un FILEbuf
// herite de maniere privee de FILEbuf, ce qui permet de s'assurer
// qu'il est bien initialise avant std::istream

class iFILEstream: private FILEbuf, public std::istream
{
public:
  explicit iFILEstream(FILE* cstream);
};

iFILEstream::iFILEstream(FILE* cstream)
  : FILEbuf(cstream), std::istream(this)
{
}

// petit programme de test
#include <assert.h>
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
  FILE* ocstream = fopen("result", "w");
  assert (ocstream != NULL);
  oFILEstream ocppstream(ocstream);
  ocppstream << "Du texte";
  fprintf(ocstream, " melange");
  fclose(ocstream);
  FILE* icstream = fopen("result", "r");
  assert (icstream != NULL);
  iFILEstream icppstream(icstream);
  std::string word1;
  std::string word2;
  icppstream >> word1;
  icppstream >> word2;
  char buf[1024];
  fgets(buf, 1024, icstream);
  std::cout << "Got :" << word1 << ':' << word2 << ':' << buf << '\n';
}