<ostream> defines std::basic_ostream and std::ostream, the base classes for output streams. It provides operator<< for formatted output, put(), write(), and flush().
Most code uses std::cout or file output streams that inherit from this class.
This example writes formatted output to a generic ostream reference and explicitly flushes the stream.
// compile: g++ -std=c++11 -o ostreamexample ostreamexample.cpp // run: ./ostreamexample // description: write to output stream #include <ostream> #include <iostream> int main() { std::ostream& out = std::cout; out << "hello " << 42 << " " << 3.14 << "\n"; out.flush(); return 0; }