Re: What are some simple, practical examples of template metaprogramming?

From:
legalize+jeeves@mail.xmission.com (Richard)
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Sat, 13 Jul 2013 01:28:09 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
<krpsuc$m9s$3@news.xmission.com>
[Please do not mail me a copy of your followup]

"K. Frank" <kfrank29.c@googlemail.com> spake the secret code
<935442e7-2b1a-4ce0-a96c-0c2345cf13b1@googlegroups.com> thusly:

What are some simple examples that illustrate the benefits of
template metaprogramming?


A type traits class that specifies additional compile-time information
associated with a type is a good, small example IMO.

One interesting trick is to use a traits class to associate other
static compile-time metadata with an enum value.

Here is a small example of template meta-programming IMO:

template <typename T>
struct type_encoder
{
     typedef no_op_encoder<T> encoder_type;
};

template <>
struct type_encoder<char>
{
     typedef utf8_encoder encoder_type;
};

template <>
struct type_encoder<char16_t>
{
     typedef utf16_encoder encoder_type;
};

type_encoder<T>::encoder_type is a template meta-function that yields
the type of an encoder class that is appropriate for type T. The
first definition says that no_op_encoder<T> is used unless we have a
specialization. Then there follows two specializations for T=char and
T=char16_t.
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