Book Image

Template Metaprogramming with C++

By : Marius Bancila
5 (1)
Book Image

Template Metaprogramming with C++

5 (1)
By: Marius Bancila

Overview of this book

Learn how the metaprogramming technique enables you to create data structures and functions that allow computation to happen at compile time. With this book, you'll realize how templates help you avoid writing duplicate code and are key to creating generic libraries, such as the standard library or Boost, that can be used in a multitude of programs. The introductory chapters of this book will give you insights into the fundamentals of templates and metaprogramming. You'll then move on to practice writing complex templates and exploring advanced concepts such as template recursion, template argument deduction, forwarding references, type traits, and conditional compilation. Along the way, you'll learn how to write variadic templates and how to provide requirements to the template arguments with C++20 constraints and concepts. Finally, you'll apply your knowledge of C++ metaprogramming templates to implement various metaprogramming patterns and techniques. By the end of this book, you'll have learned how to write effective templates and implement metaprogramming in your everyday programming journey.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
1
Part 1: Core Template Concepts
5
Part 2: Advanced Template Features
9
Part 3: Applied Templates
Appendix: Closing Notes

Understanding template parameters

So far in the book, we have seen multiple examples of templates with one or more parameters. In all these examples, the parameters represented types supplied at instantiation, either explicitly by the user, or implicitly by the compiler when it could deduce them. These kinds of parameters are called type template parameters. However, templates can also have non-type template parameters and template template parameters. In the following sections, we'll explore all of them.

Type template parameters

As already mentioned, these are parameters representing types supplied as arguments during the template instantiation. They are introduced either with the typename or the class keyword. There is no difference between using these two keywords. A type template parameter can have a default value, which is a type. This is specified the same way you would specify a default value for a function parameter. Examples for these are shown in the following...