What this book covers
Chapter 1, Introduction to Templates, provides an introduction to the concept of template metaprogramming in C++, with several simple examples, and a discussion on why we need templates and what are the pros and cons of using templates.
Chapter 2, Template Fundamentals, explores all forms of templates in C++: function templates, class templates, variable templates, and alias templates. For each of these, we discuss the syntax and the details of how they work. Furthermore, the key concepts of template instantiation and specialization are addressed here.
Chapter 3, Variadic Templates, is dedicated entirely to variadic templates which are templates that have a variable number of template parameters. We discuss in detail variadic function templates, variadic class templates, variadic alias templates, and variadic variable templates, parameter packs and how they are expanded, as well as fold expressions that help us simplify the writing of variadic templates.
Chapter 4, Advanced Template Concepts, groups a series of advanced template concepts such as dependent names and name lookup, template argument deduction, template recursion, perfect forwarding, generic and template lambdas. By understanding these topics, readers will be able to greatly expand the variety of templates they can read or write.
Chapter 5, Type Traits and Conditional Compilation, is dedicated to type traits. The reader will learn about type traits, what traits the standard library provides, and how they can be used to solve different problems.
Chapter 6, Concepts and Constraints, presents the new C++20 mechanism for defining requirements for template arguments with concepts and constraints. You will learn about the various ways to specify constraints. Moreover, we provide an overview of the content of the C++20 standard concepts library.
Chapter 7, Patterns and Idioms, explores a series of unrelated advanced topics of using the knowledge learned so far into implementing various patterns. We explore the concepts of static polymorphism, type erasure, tag dispatching, and patterns such as the curiously recursive template pattern, expression templates, mixins, and typelists.
Chapter 8, Ranges and Algorithms, is dedicated to understanding containers, iterators, and algorithms, which are the core components of the standard template library. You will learn here how to write a generic container and an iterator type for it as well as a general-purpose algorithm.
Chapter 9, The Ranges Library, explores the new C++20 Ranges library with its key features such as ranges, range adaptors, and constrained algorithms. These enable us to write simpler code for working with ranges. Furthermore, you will also learn here how to write your own range adaptor.
Appendix is a short epilog that provides a summary of the book.
Assignment Answers contains all the answers to the questions from all the chapters.