Capturing cout in Visual Studio 2005 output window?

Question

I created a C++ console app and just want to capture the cout/cerr statements in the Output Window within the Visual Studio 2005 IDE. I'm sure this is just a setting that I'm missing. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Answer 1

You can't do this.

If you want to output to the debugger's output window, call OutputDebugString.

I found this implementation of a 'teestream' which allows one output to go to multiple streams. You could implement a stream that sends data to OutputDebugString.

Answer 2

Is this a case of the output screen just flashing and then dissapearing? if so you can keep it open by using cin as your last statement before return.

Answer 3

You can capture the output of cout like this, for example:

std::streambuf* old_rdbuf = std::cout.rdbuf();
std::stringbuf new_rdbuf;
// replace default output buffer with string buffer
std::cout.rdbuf(&new_rdbuf);

// write to new buffer, make sure to flush at the end
std::cout << "hello, world" << std::endl;

std::string s(new_rdbuf.str());
// restore the default buffer before destroying the new one
std::cout.rdbuf(old_rdbuf);

// show that the data actually went somewhere
std::cout << s.size() << ": " << s;

Magicking it into the Visual Studio 2005 output window is left as an exercise to a Visual Studio 2005 plugin developer. But you could probably redirect it elsewhere, like a file or a custom window, perhaps by writing a custom streambuf class (see also boost.iostream).

Answer 4

A combination of ben's answer and Mike Dimmick's: you would be implementing a stream_buf_ that ends up calling OutputDebugString. Maybe someone has done this already? Take a look at the two proposed Boost logging libraries.

Answer 5

Also, depending on your intentions, and what libraries you are using, you may want to use the TRACE macro (MFC) or ATLTRACE (ATL).

Answer 6

Displaying cin at the end does not allow destructors to be seen.

Any way out, to visually see the destructors code?