Getting a FILE* from a std::fstream

Question

Is there a (cross-platform) way to get a C FILE* handle from a C++ std::fstream ?

The reason I ask is because my C++ library accepts fstreams and in one particular function I'd like to use a C library that accepts a FILE*.

Answer 1

There isn't a standardized way. I assume this is because the C++ standardization group didn't want to assume that a file handle can be represented as a fd.

Most platforms do seem to provide some non-standard way to do this.

http://www.ginac.de/~kreckel/fileno/ provides a good writeup of the situation and provides code that hides all the platform specific grossness, at least for GCC. Given how gross this is just on GCC, I think I'd avoid doing this all together if possible.

Answer 2

UPDATE: See @Jettatura what I think it is the best answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/33612982/225186 (Linux only?).

ORIGINAL:

(Probably not cross platform, but simple)

Simplifiying the hack in http://www.ginac.de/~kreckel/fileno/ (dvorak answer), and looking at this gcc extension http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.6.2/libstdc++/api/a00069.html#a59f78806603c619eafcd4537c920f859, I have this solution that works on GCC (4.8 at least) and clang (3.3 at least)

#include<fstream>
#include<ext/stdio_filebuf.h>

typedef std::basic_ofstream<char>::__filebuf_type buffer_t;
typedef __gnu_cxx::stdio_filebuf<char>            io_buffer_t; 
FILE* cfile_impl(buffer_t* const fb){
    return (static_cast<io_buffer_t* const>(fb))->file(); //type std::__c_file
}

FILE* cfile(std::ofstream const& ofs){return cfile_impl(ofs.rdbuf());}
FILE* cfile(std::ifstream const& ifs){return cfile_impl(ifs.rdbuf());}

and can be used this,

int main(){
    std::ofstream ofs("file.txt");
    fprintf(cfile(ofs), "sample1");
    fflush(cfile(ofs)); // ofs << std::flush; doesn't help 
    ofs << "sample2\n";
}

Limitations: (comments are welcomed)

1. I find that it is important to fflush after fprintf printing to std::ofstream, otherwise the "sample2" appears before "sample1" in the example above. I don't know if there is a better workaround for that than using fflush. Notably ofs << flush doesn't help.

2. Cannot extract FILE* from std::stringstream, I don't even know if it is possible. (see below for an update).

3. I still don't know how to extract C's stderr from std::cerr etc., for example to use in fprintf(stderr, "sample"), in an hypothetical code like this fprintf(cfile(std::cerr), "sample").

Regarding the last limitation, the only workaround I found is to add these overloads:

FILE* cfile(std::ostream const& os){
    if(std::ofstream const* ofsP = dynamic_cast<std::ofstream const*>(&os)) return cfile(*ofsP);
    if(&os == &std::cerr) return stderr;
    if(&os == &std::cout) return stdout;
    if(&os == &std::clog) return stderr;
    if(dynamic_cast<std::ostringstream const*>(&os) != 0){
       throw std::runtime_error("don't know cannot extract FILE pointer from std::ostringstream");
    }
    return 0; // stream not recognized
}
FILE* cfile(std::istream const& is){
    if(std::ifstream const* ifsP = dynamic_cast<std::ifstream const*>(&is)) return cfile(*ifsP);
    if(&is == &std::cin) return stdin;
    if(dynamic_cast<std::ostringstream const*>(&is) != 0){
        throw std::runtime_error("don't know how to extract FILE pointer from std::istringstream");
    }
    return 0; // stream not recognized
}

Attempt to handle iostringstream

It is possible to read with fscanf from istream using fmemopen, but that requires a lot of book keeping and updating the input position of the stream after each read, if one wants to combine C-reads and C++-reads. I wasn't able to convert this into a cfile function like above. (Maybe a cfile class that keeps updating after each read is the way to go).

// hack to access the protected member of istreambuf that know the current position
char* access_gptr(std::basic_streambuf<char, std::char_traits<char>>& bs){
    struct access_class : std::basic_streambuf<char, std::char_traits<char>>{
        char* access_gptr() const{return this->gptr();}
    };
    return ((access_class*)(&bs))->access_gptr();
}

int main(){
    std::istringstream iss("11 22 33");
    // read the C++ way
    int j1; iss >> j1;
    std::cout << j1 << std::endl;

    // read the C way
    float j2;

    char* buf = access_gptr(*iss.rdbuf()); // get current position
    size_t buf_size = iss.rdbuf()->in_avail(); // get remaining characters
    FILE* file = fmemopen(buf, buf_size, "r"); // open buffer memory as FILE*
    fscanf(file, "%f", &j2); // finally!
    iss.rdbuf()->pubseekoff(ftell(file), iss.cur, iss.in); // update input stream position from current FILE position.

    std::cout << "j2 = " << j2 << std::endl;

    // read again the C++ way
    int j3; iss >> j3;
    std::cout << "j3 = " << j3 << std::endl;
}