The classes istringstream & ostringstream can be utilized to create generic, templated, toString() & fromString() functions. This functionality (which is built-in in many languages, such as Java) may come in very handy, quite often.

Here’s a proposed implementation for such a request:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <sstream>

template <typename T>
std::string toString (const T &t) {
    std::ostringstream os;
    os << t;
    return os.str();
}

template <typename T>
T fromString (const std::string &str) {
    std::istringstream is(str);
    T t;
    is >> t;
    return t;
}

int main () {
    std::string three("3");
    int two=2;

    std::cout << fromString<int>(three) << std::endl;
    std::cout << toString(two) << std::endl;
}

It is important to note that the type T has some constraints:

• In toString(): there must be an operator overloading of the form operator<<(ostream&, const T&).
• In fromString(): there must be an operator overloading of the form operator>>(istream&, const T&), a default constructor for T, and a copy constructor for it.

Other than that, the technique is very useful.

Tip: boost::lexical_cast is also worth checking out (link) as it basically offers the same functionality, with some extra error checking.