C++ printing boolean, what is displayed?

Question

I print a bool to an output stream like this:

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    std::cout << false << std::endl;
}

Does the standard require a specific result on the stream (e.g. 0 for false)?

Answer 1

The standard streams have a boolalpha flag that determines what gets displayed -- when it's false, they'll display as 0 and 1. When it's true, they'll display as false and true.

There's also an std::boolalpha manipulator to set the flag, so this:

#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>

int main() {
    std::cout<<false<<"\n";
    std::cout << std::boolalpha;   
    std::cout<<false<<"\n";
    return 0;
}

...produces output like:

0
false

For what it's worth, the actual word produced when boolalpha is set to true is localized--that is, <locale> has a num_put category that handles numeric conversions, so if you imbue a stream with the right locale, it can/will print out true and false as they're represented in that locale. For example,

#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>
#include <locale>

int main() {
    std::cout.imbue(std::locale("fr"));

    std::cout << false << "\n";
    std::cout << std::boolalpha;
    std::cout << false << "\n";
    return 0;
}

...and at least in theory (assuming your compiler/standard library accept "fr" as an identifier for "French") it might print out faux instead of false. I should add, however, that real support for this is uneven at best--even the Dinkumware/Microsoft library (usually quite good in this respect) prints false for every language I've checked.

The names that get used are defined in a numpunct facet though, so if you really want them to print out correctly for particular language, you can create a numpunct facet to do that. For example, one that (I believe) is at least reasonably accurate for French would look like this:

#include <array>
#include <string>
#include <locale>
#include <ios>
#include <iostream>

class my_fr : public std::numpunct< char > {
protected:
    char do_decimal_point() const { return ','; }
    char do_thousands_sep() const { return '.'; }
    std::string do_grouping() const { return "\3"; }
    std::string do_truename() const { return "vrai";  }
    std::string do_falsename() const { return "faux"; }
};

int main() {
    std::cout.imbue(std::locale(std::locale(), new my_fr));

    std::cout << false << "\n";
    std::cout << std::boolalpha;
    std::cout << false << "\n";
    return 0;
}

And the result is (as you'd probably expect):

0
faux