VTK VisualStudio2013 Compile Error

Question

I'm trying to compile VTK5.10.1 in windows7 and Visual Studio2013( vs2012 C++ compiler, so I guess somebody may face the same question in 2012)

After fix some small bug and some missing head file Follow the tuitols of the VTK wiki. IN THE LAST STEP:

I got two error

1. C2678: binary '<<' : no operator found which takes a left-hand operand of type 'std::ostream' (or there is no acceptable conversion)

#define VTKOSTREAM_OPERATOR(type) \ vtkOStreamWrapper& vtkOStreamWrapper::operator << (type a) \ { this->ostr << a; return *this; }

VTKOSTREAM_OPERATOR(ostream&);

2.binary '==' : no operator found which takes a left-hand operand of type 'std::basic_istream>' (or there is no acceptable conversion)

 if ( this->IFile->read(result, 80) == 0)

Here the source code tray to run operator== between std :: basic_istream> and int

But int the std::istream the operator== is not override.

Waiting for help. Thanks

Answer 1

I've got exactly the same errors when building VTK 5.8.0 in Win 8.1 + VS2013x64.

Here's my solution:

1. After substituting the macros, the error goes to the definition of operator<<. The compiler need to find an declaration that matches

   this->ostr << a;
   

   where the type of this->ostr and a are both std::ostream &. So I wrote a simple test code to check the VS compiler.

   #include <iostream>
   #include <sstream>
   
   void test(std::ostream &a, std::ostream &b) {
       a << b;
   }
   
   int main(int argc, char *argv[])
   {
       std::ostringstream a,b;
       test(a,b);
       std::cout << a << std::endl;
       return 0;
   }
   

   It turns out to be correct on GCC4.7. And seems that ostream is auto-casted to some kind of a pointer (not its own address, but it doesn't matter, just output an address). However, VS2013 gives me the same error as building VTK! So, let's make rewrite the definition of vtkOStreamWrapper::operator<< (ostream &a):

   //VTKOSTREAM_OPERATOR(ostream&);
   vtkOStreamWrapper& vtkOStreamWrapper::operator << (ostream& a) {
       this->ostr << (void *)&a;
       return *this;
   }
   

2. Since the code

   if ( this->IFile->read(result, 80) == 0)
   

   actually is a C++11 way to determine whether ifstream->read() suceeds or not (a ostream can be auto-casted to a bool), which is not supported by VS2013. I change all of them into standard form:

   if ( this->IFile->read(result, 80).fail())