I have written a custom std::basic_streambuf and std::basic_ostream because I want an output stream that I can get a JNI string from in a manner similar to how you can call std::ostringstream::str(). These classes are quite simple. namespace myns { class jni_utf16_streambuf : public std::basic_streambuf<char16_t> { JNIEnv * d_env; std::vector<char16_t> d_buf; virtual int_type overflow(int_type); public: jni_utf16_streambuf(JNIEnv *); jstring jstr() const; }; typedef std::basic_ostream<char16_t, std::char_traits<char16_t>> utf16_ostream; class jni_utf16_ostream : public utf16_ostream { jni_utf16_streambuf d_buf; public: jni_utf16_ostream(JNIEnv *); jstring jstr() const; }; // ... } // namespace myns In addition, I have made four overloads of operator<<, all in the same namespace: namespace myns { // ... utf16_ostream& operator<<(utf16_ostream&, jstring) throw(std::bad_cast); utf16_ostream& operator<<(utf16_ostream&, const char *); utf16_ostream& operator<<(utf16_ostream&, const jni_utf16_string_region&); jni_utf16_ostream& operator<<(jni_utf16_ostream&, jstring); // ... } // namespace myns The implementation of jni_utf16_streambuf::overflow(int_type) is trivial. It just doubles the buffer width, puts the requested character, and sets the base, put, and end pointers correctly. It is tested and I am quite sure it works. The jni_utf16_ostream works fine inserting unicode characters. For example, this works fine and results in the stream containing "hello, world": myns::jni_utf16_ostream o(env); o << u"hello, wor" << u'l' << u'd'; My problem is as soon as I try to insert an integer value, the stream's bad bit gets set, for example: myns::jni_utf16_ostream o(env); if (o.badbit()) throw "bad bit before"; // does not throw int32_t x(5); o << x; if (o.badbit()) throw "bad bit after"; // throws :( I don't understand why this is happening! Is there some other method on std::basic_streambuf I need to be implementing????