These additional overloads where added to libstdc++ in anticipation of a resolution to defect report 118, see
http://anubis.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/lwg-defects.html#118 However, this defect report is resolved in a different way now (by removing extractor functions, instead of adding get methods). This resolution has been incorporated in libstdc++, as locale_facet.h:1.29. * include/bits/locale_facets.h (_Numeric_get): Remove. (_Numeric_put): Remove. (num_get::get(short)): Remove. (num_get::get(int)): Remove. (num_get::do_get(short)): Remove. (num_get::do_get(int)): Remove. * include/bits/istream.tcc (istream::operator>>(short)): Fix as per DR 118. (istream::operator>>(int)): Same. This was released as gcc 3.1, and is thus fixed in gcc 3.2. Regards, Martin