I can't seem to pull together the relevant pieces of the standard to
make sense of this. Any help and relevant pointers into the standard
would be appreciated. Thanks.

I can understand why basic_stringbuf's constructor takes an openmode
argument as it serves basic_istringstream, basic_ostringstream and
basic_stringstream. But why do the stringstreams themselves take an
openmode when they each support hardcoded directions (insertion,
extraction, both)? I.e., I can do:

   std::ostringstream os(std::ios_base::in);
   // 27.7.3.1 "Constructs and object ... and initializing [stringbuf]
   //           with [supplied openmode] | ios_base::out"

   os << "Random " << 32 << " inputs";

but even though I've specified 'in' in the constructor, the compiler
will complain if I attempt to write:

   std::string sample;
   os >> sample;

So what material in the standard supports the openmode argument?

--
Don Wakefield                              Mentor Graphics Corporation
(503) 685-1262                             8005 S.W. Boeckman Road
don_wakefield@mentorg.com                  Wilsonville, OR 97070-7777

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