Can std::cout fully replace printf?

The answer is very much simple, in the realm of C++, it already has replaced the printf function. You write the C++ programs like this,

#include <iostream.h>

void main () {
   std::cout << "Hello from cout!";
}

There is no need to include the old C-style, stdio.h and use those functions. So in that case, you should consider using cout.

However, in the realm of C, there is no cout. Thus, in that case it is still printf. As Sergey already said,

Quote:

Some hate using std:cout

Here I am, and I agree that I am one of them. I prefer using printf() because of the format arguments I can provide it with. Like this,

#include <stdio.h>

void main () {
  const char *name = "Afzaal Ahmad Zeeshan";
  int age = 20;
  char *message = "Love for all, hatred for none.";

  printf("My name is %s, \nMy age is %d, \n%s", name, age, message);
}

Now the same in the realm of C++ would be something like this,

#include <iostream>

void main () {
  const char *name = "Afzaal Ahmad Zeeshan";
  int age = 20;
  char *message = "Love for all, hatred for none.";

  std::cout << "My name is " << name << ",\nMy age is " << age << 
               ", \n" << message << std::endl;
}

I don't have to say who won, you know who. :-) But still, stick to cout in C++ programs and do not consider re-using the C functions and libraries. That is exactly why Bjarne created C++. The thing where cout wins is that you can pass almost any type to it in the output stream, and it would be accepted.

References:
Please do read the references and manuals for these two, they may help you in understand a few more things:
1. http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/cstdio/printf/[^]
2. http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/iostream/cout/[^]

Note: In C/C++ an array is indeed a pointer, so I used const char *name instead of char name[]. I hope no offence is raised on that. :-)

printf() and scanf() are the C functions which may be replaced by std::cout and std::cin in C++. Thus it can be seen as a question of whether to use <iostream> instead of the traditional <cstdio>. This discusses the 2 approaches and gives some compelling reasons for using <iostream>: https://isocpp.org/wiki/faq/input-output#iostream-vs-stdio[^]

The whole issue is discussed at length here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2872543/printf-vs-cout-in-c[^]

Is one approach better than the other? The answer you get will probably be coloured as much by history as by reason. Old C programmers are very comfortable with <cstdio> while newer programmers may prefer to take the canonical C++ approach and use <iostream>.

Are Riff wrote:

Can std::cout fully replace all the printf could offer?
Especially when printf can easily deal with decimal places in float
within the text.

Technically yes because you can inherit from <iostream> and overload operator << so it is entirely up to you: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/1z2f6c2k.aspx[^]

No.