Using the <b>setf</b> member function for <b>cout</b> to format the
alignment of output does not display correctly on the screen or in an
output file.

For example, using <b>cout.setf(ios::right)</b> to align text output to the
right of the screen with the manipulator <b>setw(15)</b> will print out
garbage characters instead of spaces when dumping all output into a file. 

Interestingly, if you put <b>cout.unsetf(ios::left)</b> right before you
set the flag for right alignment, the garbage characters come before your
output. If you don't manually unset the flag for left alignment, the
garbage characters come after your output.