Thinking in C++ Vol 2 - Practical Programming
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Format fields

The second type of formatting flags work in a group. Only one of these flags can be set at a time, like the buttons on old car radios you push one in, the rest pop out. Unfortunately this doesn t happen automatically, and you must pay attention to what flags you re setting so that you don t accidentally call the wrong setf( ) function. For example, there s a flag for each of the number bases: hexadecimal, decimal, and octal. Collectively, these flags are referred to as the ios::basefield. If the ios::dec flag is set and you call setf(ios::hex), you ll set the ios::hex flag, but you won t clear the ios::dec bit, resulting in undefined behavior. Instead, call the second form of setf( ) like this: setf(ios::hex, ios::basefield). This function first clears all the bits in the ios::basefield and then sets ios::hex. Thus, this form of setf( ) ensures that the other flags in the group pop out whenever you set one. The ios::hex manipulator does all this for you, automatically, so you don t need to concern yourself with the internal details of the implementation of this class or to even care that it s a set of binary flags. Later you ll see that there are manipulators to provide equivalent functionality in all the places you would use setf( ).

Here are the flag groups and their effects:

ios::basefield	Effect
ios::dec	Format integral values in base 10 (decimal) (the default radix no prefix is visible).
ios::hex	Format integral values in base 16 (hexadecimal).
ios::oct	Format integral values in base 8 (octal).

 

ios::floatfield	Effect
ios::scientific	Display floating-point numbers in scientific format. Precision field indicates number of digits after the decimal point.
ios::fixed	Display floating-point numbers in fixed format. Precision field indicates number of digits after the decimal point.
automatic (Neither bit is set.)	Precision field indicates the total number of significant digits.

 

ios::adjustfield	Effect
ios::left	Left-align values; pad on the right with the fill character.
ios::right	Right-align values. Pad on the left with the fill character. This is the default alignment.
ios::internal	Add fill characters after any leading sign or base indicator, but before the value. (In other words, the sign, if printed, is left-justified while the number is right-justified.)

 

Thinking in C++ Vol 2 - Practical Programming
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