std::basic_ios<CharT,Traits>::operator bool

Checks whether the stream has no errors.

This operator makes it possible to use streams and functions that return references to streams as loop conditions, resulting in the idiomatic C++ input loops such as while (stream >> value) {...} or while ( std::getline (stream, string) ) {...}

Parameters

(none)

Return value

Notes

This conversion can be used in contexts where a bool is expected (e.g. an if condition). However, implicit conversions (e.g. to int) that can occur with bool

In C++98, operator bool could not be provided directly due to the safe bool problem. The initial solution in C++98 is to provide operator void*, which returns a null pointer if fail() returns true or a non-null pointer otherwise. It is replaced by the resolution of LWG issue 468, which allows Safe Bool idiom

Since C++11, conversion functions can be explicit. The resolution of LWG issue 1094 introduced the explicit operator bool

Example

#include <iostream>
#include <sstream>
 
int main()
{
    std::istringstream s("1 2 3 error");
    int n;
 
    std::cout << std::boolalpha << "s is " << static_cast<bool>(s) << '\n';
    while (s >> n)
        std::cout << n << '\n';
    std::cout << "s is " << static_cast<bool>(s) << '\n';
}

s is true
1
2
3
s is false

Defect reports

The following behavior-changing defect reports were applied retroactively to previously published C++ standards.

See also

The following table shows the value of basic_ios accessors (good(), fail(), etc.) for all possible combinations of ios_base::iostate