Explicit specialization declaration syntax
>>-template--<-->--declaration_name--+------------------------------+--declaration_body-><
'-<--template_argument_list-->-'
When you instantiate a template with a given set of template arguments the compiler generates a new definition based on those template arguments. You can override this behavior of definition generation. You can instead specify the definition the compiler uses for a given set of template arguments. This is called explicit specialization. You can explicitly specialize any of the following:
The template<> prefix indicates that the following template declaration takes no template parameters. The declaration_name is the name of a previously declared template. Note that you can forward-declare an explicit specialization so the declaration_body is optional, at least until the specialization is referenced.
The following example demonstrates explicit specialization:
using namespace std;
template<class T = float, int i = 5> class A
{
public:
A();
int value;
};
template<> class A<> { public: A(); };
template<> class A<double, 10> { public: A(); };
template<class T, int i> A<T, i>::A() : value(i) {
cout << "Primary template, "
<< "non-type argument is " << value << endl;
}
A<>::A() {
cout << "Explicit specialization "
<< "default arguments" << endl;
}
A<double, 10>::A() {
cout << "Explicit specialization "
<< "<double, 10>" << endl;
}
int main() {
A<int,6> x;
A<> y;
A<double, 10> z;
}The following is the output of the above example:
Primary template non-type argument is: 6
Explicit specialization default arguments
Explicit specialization <double, 10>This example declared two explicit specializations for the primary template (the template which is being specialized) class A. Object x uses the constructor of the primary template. Object y uses the explicit specialization A<>::A(). Object z uses the explicit specialization A<double, 10>::A().
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