Quick & simple FR: Adding ostream operator overload for var class?

General JUCE discussion
1

I just came across some situation where it was handy to have a std::ostream operator<< for the var class that just adds the string representation of the var to the stream. I implemented it like that:

std::ostream& operator<< (std::ostream& os, const var& v)
{
    return os << v.toString();
}

Would it make sense to the juce team to add this to the library?

2

Alternatively a version with additional support for arrays :wink:

std::ostream& operator<< (std::ostream& os, const var& v)
{
    if (v.isArray())
    {
        os << "[ ";
        
        const int arraySize = v.size();
        for (int arrayField = 0; arrayField < arraySize; ++arrayField)
            os << v[arrayField] << " ";

        return os << "]";
    }

    return os << v.toString();
}
3

The juce::OutputStream doesn’t do it for you?

Also there is the operator for String: std::basic_ostream<char, traits>& operator<<(std::basic_ostream<char, traits>& stream, const String& stringToWrite),
which should allow you to do (haven’t tried though):

var v;
std::cout << v.toString() << std::endl;
4

Yes I know both and this is how I do it currently, as you can see in my code snippet I already make use of the String operator you mentioned.

However, my intention was primarily to write clean looking print statements in command in a line application context, e.g.

var a ({1, 2, 3, 4});
var b ("foo");

std::cout << "a contains: " << a << ", b contains: " << b << std::endl;

which would result in an output like a contains: [ 1 2 3 4 ], b contains: foo.

I just thinks this syntax look nice & clean, there is nothing that couldn’t be done without it :wink: