Type-safe, buffer-safe printf to a C++ ostream or string

void oprintf( std:: ostream&, printf_format, ... );
std::string strprintf( printf_format, ... );
std::wstring wstrprintf( printf_format, ... );

(What's shown above are "conceptual" prototypes for these functions; the actual implementation is much more complicated.)

These functions provide type-safe printf. For example:

oprintf( cout, "%s", 3 );    // run-time assertion: type mismatch
oprintf( cout, "%s" );       // run-time assertion: too few arguments
oprintf( cout, "hello", 3 ); // run-time assertion: too many arguments

Also, they provide buffer-safe printf, since they write to an ostream or a C++ string.

Finally, they can be very handy for calling a function without having to explicitly create a string temporary. For example, in traditional code, you might write this:

if (errorcode != 0)
{
    char buf[100];

    sprintf(buf, "error %d", errorcode);
    MessageBox(hwnd, buf, NULL, MB_OK);
}

With the help of these functions, you can write the above code like this:

if (errorcode != 0)
    MessageBox(hwnd, strprintf("error %d", errorcode), NULL, MB_OK);

This creates a temporary object on the stack of type std::string; formats the specified string into it; passes string as a (const char*) to the function; and then deletes the temporary object automatically.

You may notice that I didn't have to call string::c_str() on the return value from the strprintf() call above. That's because, although I implemented strprintf so that it appears to return a std::string, it is actually implemented as a class of its own, which subclasses std::string. The strprintf class supports an implicit cast from type (strprintf) to type (const char*).

Passing C++ strings as parameters

By the way, as a little bonus, these functions accept C++ string objects as a valid argument for a "%s" specifier. For example:

string s;
oprintf(cout, "hello %s\n", s);  // "s.c_str()" is not required

Signed vs. unsigned, and int vs. long

By default, this code is lax about signed vs. unsigned values, and about int vs. long values. For example, by default the following code will run successfully:

int i;
long l;
unsigned u;

oprintf(cout, "%d", l);  // l is a long, not an int!
oprintf(cout, "%ld", i); // i is an int, not a long!
oprintf(cout, "%u", i);  // i is signed, not unsigned!
oprintf(cout, "%d", u);  // u is unsigned, not signed!

If you prefer that the code enforce correct sign and correct int/long specifications in the printf format string, you can enable such behavior by #defining STREAMPRINTF_STRICT_SIGN and/or STREAMPRINTF_STRICT_INTSIZE before you #include streamprintf.h.