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 instantiation

As mentioned before, templates are only blueprints from which the compiler creates actual code when it encounters their use. The act of creating a definition for a function, a class, or a variable from the template declaration is called template instantiation. This can be either explicit, when you tell the compiler when it should generate a definition, or implicit, when the compiler generates a new definition as needed. We will look at these two forms in detail in the next sections.

Implicit instantiation

Implicit instantiation occurs when the compiler generates definitions based on the use of templates and when no explicit instantiation is present. Implicitly instantiated templates are defined in the same namespace as the template. However, the way compilers create definitions from templates may differ. This is something we will see in the following example. Let's consider this code:

template <typename T>
struct foo
{
 ...