Question

In creating C++ applications, you have the ability to utilize various formatting functions in the iostream library. What are some of the formatting vulnerabilities that can be encountered in using the iostream library in C++?

Answer 1

i. Utility

ii. Performance

Explanation:

While there may be other vulnerabilities of the iostream library when compared to other C++ libraries, the two most common vulnerabilities are

I. Utility

II. Performance

Utility

The capacity of iostream to extend its structured read and write functions is its biggest features. One can overload the operator "<<" for various functions and types and simply use them.

This can't be done with fprintf but it can be used for classes in namespaces. Also, new streambuf types and even streams can't be created just anytime.

Performance

The effect of, “iostreams is intended to do far more than C-standard file IO.” but that is not always true because with iostreams, though there is an extensible mechanism for writing any type directly to a stream, one can't easily write new streambuf’s that will allow you to (via runtime polymorphism) be able to work with existing code.