c++ - Correctly over-loading a stringbuf to replace cout in a MATLAB mex file

Question

MathWorks currently doesn't allow you to use cout from a mex file when the MATLAB desktop is open because they have redirected stdout. Their current workaround is providing a function, mexPrintf, that they request you use instead. After googling around a bit, I think that it's possible to extend the std::stringbuf class to do what I need. Here's what I have so far. Is this robust enough, or are there other methods I need to overload or a better way to do this? (Looking for portability in a general UNIX environment and the ability to use std::cout as normal if this code is not linked against a mex executable)

class mstream : public stringbuf {
public:
  virtual streamsize xsputn(const char *s, std::streamsize n) 
  {
mexPrintf("*s",s,n);
return basic_streambuf<char, std::char_traits<char>>::xsputn(s,n);
  }
}; 

mstream mout;
outbuf = cout.rdbuf(mout.rdbuf());    

Answer 1

Shane, thanks very much for your help. Here's my final working implementation.

class mstream : public std::streambuf {
public:
protected:
  virtual std::streamsize xsputn(const char *s, std::streamsize n); 
  virtual int overflow(int c = EOF);
}; 

...

std::streamsize 
mstream::xsputn(const char *s, std::streamsize n) 
{
  mexPrintf("%.*s",n,s);
  return n;
}

int 
mstream::overflow(int c) 
{
    if (c != EOF) {
      mexPrintf("%.1s",&c);
    }
    return 1;
}

...

// Replace the std stream with the 'matlab' stream
// Put this in the beginning of the mex function
mstream mout;
std::streambuf *outbuf = std::cout.rdbuf(&mout); 

...

// Restore the std stream buffer 
std::cout.rdbuf(outbuf);