Re: Legalize access to file descriptors now! (So sue me.)

[Jonathan Wakely <cow at compsoc dot man dot ac dot uk>]

On Thu, Feb 17, 2005 at 11:22:34AM +0000, Jonathan Wakely wrote:

> On Wed, Feb 16, 2005 at 11:56:29PM +0100, Richard B. Kreckel wrote:
> 
> > Since we've had the discussion whether to allow access to file descriptors
> > from C++ stream objects more than once without any result, I've had to
> > hack my way through to the file descriptors by applying a good amount of
> > brute force (not to mention all the beer).
> > 
> > So, here is my lament: http://www.ginac.de/~kreckel/fileno/.  Could you
> > folks please, please make the access a little bit more smooth?  We need
> > the
> > file descriptor.  We are going to get it.  Don't prolong the agony.


    "at least all the ugly stuff is completely hidden away inside a
    compiled function and the interface is clear and pristine"

Is that valid?  Doesn't a definition of fileno() have to be visible
when it's used?

To achieve what you want fileno() would have to be a non-template
function, overloaded for std::basic_ios<char> and
std::basic_ios<wchar_t>. The definitions of those overloads could then
use fileno_hack() which can be private to the file containing the
function definitions.

Or am I wrong about how function templates are instantiated?

jon

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