Alternative to #define

[drunken meerkat]

Hi everyone,
In the program I am writing I need to include a time stamp which need to be in the form: "time: 2011-09-08 14:21:44.4730". I have achieved this by doing:

		GetLocalTime(&lt);
		timeStampStream.str("");
		timeStampStream <<lt.wYear<<"-"<< ::std::setfill('0')<< ::std::setw(2)<<lt.wMonth<<"-"
		  <<::std::setw(2)<<lt.wDay<<" "<< ::std::setw (2)<<lt.wHour<<":"<<::std::setw(2)<<lt.wMinute
		  <<":"<<::std::setw(2)<<lt.wSecond<<"."<<::std::setw(3)<<lt.wMilliseconds<<"0";
		timeStampString = timeStampStream.str();
		::std::cout << "time: " << timeStampString << ::std::endl;

I was thinking of using a #define like so
#define TIME_STAMP_INFO <<lt.wYear<<"-"<< ::std::setfill('0')<< ::std::setw(2)<<lt.wMonth<<"-"<<::std::setw(2)<<lt.wDay<<" "<< ::std::setw (2)<<lt.wHour<<":"<<::std::setw(2)<<lt.wMinute<<":"<<::std::setw(2)<<lt.wSecond<<"."<<::std::setw(3)<<lt.wMilliseconds<<"0"

then to do a time stamp each time I would type:

		GetLocalTime(&lt);
		timeStampStream.str("");
		timeStampStream TIME_STAMP_INFO;
		timeStampString = timeStampStream.str();
		::std::cout << "time: " << timeStampString << ::std::endl;

In C this is probably what I would have done, but I'm sure there is a better way to do it in C++. Normally you can use const in C++ where I had previously used #define in C, however I can't seem to work it out for this. Anybody have any ideas? Also is there anyway for a #define to continue onto another line? The statement would be about 250 characters long which is more than twice what I would like any of my lines of code to be.

And yes I have looked into the differences of #define and const etc. But I can't seem to find something on the internet that answers this problem. (Although I'm very possibly just searching for the wrong thing)

Thanks for your help,
Meerkat

[Zhuge]

Actually, to me it looks like you want a function.

[drunken meerkat]

Yea that makes much more sense. I was just so caught up in finding a way of doing it similar to a #define I wasn't thinking straight. Thanks.

Meerkat

[drunken meerkat]

Encase anybody is interested here's what the function looks like:

void timeStamp()
{
    SYSTEMTIME st, lt;
	::std::ostringstream timeStampStream;

	GetLocalTime(&lt);
	timeStampStream.str("");
	timeStampStream <<lt.wYear<<"-"<< ::std::setfill('0')<< ::std::setw(2)<<lt.wMonth<<"-"<<::std::setw(2)<<lt.wDay
	  <<" "<< ::std::setw (2)<<lt.wHour<<":"<<::std::setw(2)<<lt.wMinute<<":"<<::std::setw(2)<<lt.wSecond<<"."
	  <<::std::setw(3)<<lt.wMilliseconds<<"0";
	timeStampString = timeStampStream.str();
}

timeStampString is a std::string with global scope. Not much to it, but if anybody has any questions just ask.

Finally though does anybody know a better way to make a time stamp of this form?

Meerkat