Object of class ostream that represents the standard output stream oriented to narrow characters (of type char). It corresponds to the C streamstdout.
The standard output stream is the default destination of characters determined by the environment. This destination may be shared with more standard objects (such as cerr or clog).
As an object of class ostream, characters can be written to it either as formatted data using the insertion operator (operator<<) or as unformatted data, using member functions such as write.
The object is declared in header <iostream> with external linkage and static duration: it lasts the entire duration of the program.
In terms of static initialization order, cout is guaranteed to be properly constructed and initialized no later than the first time an object of type ios_base::Init is constructed.
In terms of static initialization order, cout is guaranteed to be properly constructed and initialized no later than the first time an object of type ios_base::Init is constructed, with the inclusion of <iostream> counting as at least one initialization of such objects with static duration.
cout is not tied to any other output stream (see ios::tie).
A program should not mix output operations on cout with output operations on wcout (or with other wide-oriented output operations on stdout): Once an output operation has been performed on either, the standard output stream acquires an orientation (either narrow or wide) that can only be safely changed by calling freopen on stdout.
For more information on the operations supported by cout, see the reference for its type: ostream.