Accessing private member of class in a vector and return it as a string

Question

I am trying to create a vector of integers and then write it out through a function that would print the values with a certain width.

Say the vector was filled with {1,2,3,4} and the limiting width is 4 , then the output is: 1 2 2 4

Using turntostring , which converts data type into string and return int, I was able to turn int into string and get its size in my function that prints the vector.

turntostring(r.at(i)).size();

So at i = 2 , I have int = 4 , with the code above the return value is 1 .

It was fine until I have to do the same for a vector of classes and as I am trying to access the element in this class I am unable to use the same line of code above.

I tried to write a print function for the class and write this in order to obtain the same result:

r.at(i).print().size();

Print would take the class and return a string.

But I need to use the same line of code to access the size of the element as a requirement. Meaning the same line of code must work for a vector of type int and a vector of class with a member of type int for example:

class fake
{
    int num;
}

vector<int> r;
vector<fake> k;

I should be able to access each element in these two vectors and use .size() then use turnintostring on them.

Please let me know if there is some method that I do not know about.

Answer 1

If you already have string turntostring(int) then you just need a cast:

class fake
{
    int num;
public:
    operator int();
}
fake::operator int() {return num;}

turntostring(some_fake);
turntostring(3);