Difference between cout and cout.write in C++

[Ilikecereal]

What's the purpose of cout.write. Isn't it pretty much the same thing as cout?

For eg, the following code would work the same with cout and cout.write

int main( )
{ char string[80] ;
cout<<"Enter string\n" ;
cin.getline(string, 80) ;
int x1 = strlen(string) ;
for(int i = 0 ; string != '\0' ; i++)
if(string == ' ')
string = '-' ;
cout<<"The changed string is\n" ;
cout.write(string, x1) ;
return 0 ;
}

 

[I like Serena]

cout.write() is the public method to actually write a string.

cout is used in an overloaded version of the << operator.
In particular this allows you to stream any type into cout, which is not something cout.write supports.