Ifstream::unget() fails. Is MS' implementation buggy or is my code erroneous?

Yes. Standard streams are required to have at least 1 unget() position. So you can safely do only one unget() after a call to get() .

When you call peek() and the input buffer is empty underflow() occurs and the implementation clears the buffer and loads a new portion of data. Note that peek() doesn't increase current input location, so it points to the beginning of the buffer. When you try to unget() the implementation tries to decrease current input position, but it's already at the beginning of the buffer so it fails.

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