datetime - Is there a standard date/time class in C++?

Question

Does C++ stl have a standard time class? Or do I have to convert to c-string before writing to a stream. Example, I want to output the current date/time to a string stream:

time_t tm();
ostringstream sout;
sout << tm << ends;

In this case I get the current date/time written out as a number without any formatting. I can use c- runtime function strftime to format tm first, but that seems like it should not be necessary if the stl has a time class that can be instantiated from time_t value

Answer 1

Not part of STL but well known library is boost.

I would go the way of using boost::date. Here are some examples: http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_55_0/doc/html/date_time/date_time_io.html#date_time.io_tutorial.

If you did not try out boost yet I encourage you to do so as it saves you from a lot of nasty issues, as it masks most OS dependent things like threading for example. Many things in boost are header only (template libraries). However datetime requires a lib or dll.