manipulating a stream via FILE*
<p>I've just run across some C++ code which uses a FILE* to manipulate a file stream using the "f" functions (fopen, fseek, fread, etc). I believe that these are provided by standard header cstdio.</p>

<p>Is this considered a dated or bad practice in modern C++ code? I ask because I also see that you can get/set the position of the stream of an ifstream object using setg and tellg and I'd like to know what the advantage is to doing it this way. Is this an "old habits die hard" C programmer way of manipulating the stream or is there still a valid reason to use FILE* and the "f" functions in modern C++ code?</p>
