C++ Templates: The Complete Guide

Although templates have been part of C++ for well over a decade (and available in various forms for almost...

This chapter introduces function templates. Function templates are functions that are parameterized so that they represent a family of...

Similar to functions, classes can also be parameterized with one or more types. Container classes, which are used to...

For function and class templates, template parameters don't have to be types. They can also be ordinary values. As...

This chapter covers some further basic aspects of templates that are relevant to the practical use of templates: an...

Template code is a little different from ordinary code. In some ways templates lie somewhere between macros and ordinary...

So far we have introduced the basic concept of templates in C++. Before we go into details, let's look...

In this chapter we review some of the fundamentals introduced in the first part of this book in depth:...

Names are a fundamental concept in most programming languages. They are the means by which a programmer can refer...

Template instantiation is the process that generates types and functions from generic template definitions. [1] The concept of instantiation...

Explicitly specifying template arguments on every call to a function template (for example, concat<std::string, int>(s, 3)) can quickly lead...

So far we have studied how C++ templates allow a generic definition to be expanded into a family of...

C++ templates evolved considerably from their initial design in 1988 until the standardization of C++ in 1998 (the technical...

Polymorphism is the ability to associate different specific behaviors with a single generic notation. [1] Polymorphism is also a...

Templates enable us to parameterize classes and functions for various types. It could be tempting to introduce as many...

A priori, there might be no reason to think that templates and inheritance interact in interesting ways. If anything,...

Metaprogramming consists of "programming a program." In other words, we lay out code that the programming system executes to...

In this chapter we explore a template programming technique called expression templates. It was originally invented in support of...

It is sometimes useful to be able to know whether a template parameter is a built-in type, a pointer...

Memory is a resource that is normally explicitly managed in C++ programs. This management involves the acquisition and disposal...

Throughout this book we often use homogeneous containers and array-like types to illustrate the power of templates. Such homogeneous...

A function object (also called a functor) is any object that can be called using the function call syntax....