Rating: 
Summary: Every serious streams programmer needs this book
Review: This book is *the* reference for IOstreams. It is for advanced programmers who need to extend the IOstreams framework.This book is not a tutorial or an introduction. It is not recommended for people to learn how to *use* IOstreams. It *is* a complete technical reference, covering every detail of how IOstreams work. I've had to use it a few times in my work, and each time I was able to find the information I needed very quickly (this is good, considering I've never read it through). I have not yet had to use the information on locales, but I expect it to be equally complete and well-organized. A *must* for any serious C++ programmer!
Rating:
Summary: Indispensible Guide to IOStreams
Review: This book is as indispensible to the serious C++ programmer as guides to the Standard Containers (STL) parts of the C++ standard library, and arrived in the bookstores in time to be the standard work on the subject for years to come. It is well written and lucid, and despite the authors claim to minimize the number of actual examples, contains sufficient snippets of usable code to be practically useful.
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Summary: the book of choice with regard to standard IOStream
Review: This book is by far the most thorough and profound book I have read so far which covers standard IOStreams. Especially, I liked the comprehensive discussion of error handling which is often neglected by other authors. The coverage of the topic is exhaustive. The iterator concept and the other parts of the standard library are explained deeply enough that the novice reader can get the glue. The boxes "New Language Feature" are very helpful for the novice reader and add a kind of luxury to the book. The reference guide is very helpful in comparison to the standard. It can be used as a basis for ones daily work. The layout is clearly arranged and readable.
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Summary: Required Ownership for C++ programmers
Review: This book is it. There is no other text which covers the full I/O Streams library as of the ISO C++99 standard. B. Stroustrup's book "The C++ Programming language" has one chapter of 50+ pages on streams. Its enough to get you started, but not enough if you want to make roll your own. Your other choice is to comb back issues of C++ Report and C/C++ User's Journal for the relevent information. (And know enough to ignore the articles that do it wrong. Ok maybe wrong is too strong a word, but now that you have the option to understand how the streams library is built you can use it the way it was intended.) There is now no reason ANY programmer should create a new ostream class by inheriting from basic_ostream<>. The I/O streams library was designed to be extended by programmers. Read this book and learn how to do it so that you don't have to re-write every sub member as a forward to the actual class. As for Locales, there is a chapter in the latest version of B.S's book as an Appendix. Or about 1/4th of this book is devoted to how that mechanism works. Buy it. You need it. Without it you are programming by guess and by golly.
Rating:
Summary: Required Ownership for C++ programmers
Review: This book is it. There is no other text which covers the full I/O Streams library as of the ISO C++99 standard. B. Stroustrup's book "The C++ Programming language" has one chapter of 50+ pages on streams. Its enough to get you started, but not enough if you want to make roll your own. Your other choice is to comb back issues of C++ Report and C/C++ User's Journal for the relevent information. (And know enough to ignore the articles that do it wrong. Ok maybe wrong is too strong a word, but now that you have the option to understand how the streams library is built you can use it the way it was intended.) There is now no reason ANY programmer should create a new ostream class by inheriting from basic_ostream<>. The I/O streams library was designed to be extended by programmers. Read this book and learn how to do it so that you don't have to re-write every sub member as a forward to the actual class. As for Locales, there is a chapter in the latest version of B.S's book as an Appendix. Or about 1/4th of this book is devoted to how that mechanism works. Buy it. You need it. Without it you are programming by guess and by golly.
Rating: 
Summary: It may have warts, but it's the only option
Review: This book is the only up-to-date guide to the minutae of the ANSI/ISO C++ IOStreams framework, and it's hugely detailed. It's not easy to follow, even by the standards of this field, and the code samples aren't the best, but if you need to understand IOStreams you have no choice.
Rating:
Summary: It may have warts, but it's the only option
Review: This book is the only up-to-date guide to the minutae of the ANSI/ISO C++ IOStreams framework, and it's hugely detailed. It's not easy to follow, even by the standards of this field, and the code samples aren't the best, but if you need to understand IOStreams you have no choice.
Rating: 
Summary: Very technical but worth the read and the wait
Review: Two of my favorite C++ article authors have put out a VERY useful book for someone who already has a good grasp of C++ but now wants to have a mastery of IOStreams.
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Summary: The best, and only, comprehensive IOStreams book
Review: When people think of C++ standard libraries, they think of the STL. There are dozens of books on the STL, and everyone is taking advantages of its features to get good algorithms that don't reinvent the wheel. As this book points out, IOStreams is perhaps the most-overlooked part of standard C++. It has just as many features as the STL, and can help you write less, better code if you take advantage of it. If you have ever spent a few days writing a buffer class, you didn't have to; The IOStreams streambuf is comletely extensible and customizable. Even better, IOStreams is a complex, high-performance library written by a C++ expert from Bell Labs. Most of us C++ programmers don't think about how IOStreams works, other than to write '<<' a few times. OO design doesn't get any better than that. This book is also an excellent case study on the IOStreams library, touching on the proper use of multiple inheritence, and the benefits of static type checking. If a library can be this efficient and extensible, while being as easy to use as typing '<<', there is something every C++ programmer can learn from its design. The book is even endorsed by Jerry Schwarz, the man who invented IOStreams, and has a forward written by him. If you own two STL books, but not this book, I think you've made a mistake. This should be the third C++ book you buy, after a language reference and STL reference. It is that useful and interesting.
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