From -5076383050877396928 X-Google-Thread: f78e5,d622c2d05233cea8,start X-Google-Attributes: gidf78e5,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!news3.google.com!news4.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local01.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.speakeasy.net!news.speakeasy.net.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 10:30:20 -0500 Return-Path: X-Authentication-Warning: mulga.csse.unimelb.edu.au: fjh set sender to devnull@stump.algebra.com using -f X-Robomod: STUMP, ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov) X-Original-To: std-c++@mailman.ucar.edu Delivered-To: std-c++@mailman.ucar.edu From: "Geo" Newsgroups: comp.std.c++ Subject: Template members of template class Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <1152613761.862951.8940@35g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com User-Agent: G2/0.2 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060508 Firefox/1.5.0.4,gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) X-HTTP-Via: 1.1 S1PS Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: 35g2000cwc.googlegroups.com; posting-host=195.33.114.129; posting-account=1jTPJQ0AAAC8L70X2o2rFmtB7ewZAKxJ X-Greylisting: NO DELAY (Relay+Sender autoqualified); processed by UCSD_GL-v2.1 on mailbox7.ucsd.edu; Tue, 11 July 2006 03:29:29 -0700 (PDT) X-Spamscanner: mailbox7.ucsd.edu (v1.6 Jul 6 2006 14:57:05, 0.0/5.0 3.1.3) X-MailScanner: PASSED (v1.2.8 82079 k6BATShi090225 mailbox7.ucsd.edu) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at ucar.edu X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at csse.unimelb.edu.au Approved: Fergus Henderson , moderator of comp.std.c++ X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at csse.unimelb.edu.au Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 10:23:28 CST Lines: 48 NNTP-Posting-Host: 65.182.171.162 X-Trace: sv3-6ALUYAWln9NzyfLXt8kjE9v+bjmdcpshbNKux0DiHZb/ewDj1YJ5x07D9WIHHc3T2/0spPUgovh8LBn!7t/k9kcbaNzWcqBpCmm9a5tKEeTFQZnh2kwnzBCEsHguAJdTsIsh+YmJmYYfds/6dwX0LVZKYuza!8Ip6RLZfhBFLieVJmEdoVpZFRUod0TKOuI2tabs= X-Complaints-To: abuse@speakeasy.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@speakeasy.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.32 Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.std.c++:2670 Having spent several hours trying to get the following code to compile in GCC and failing namespace test { template class Formatter__ { private: U ss; public: Formatter__(V out) : ss(out) { } template Formatter__& operator<<(const T &item) { ss << item; return *this; } template<> Formatter__& operator<<(const char* s) { ss << do_stuff(s); return *this; } }; }; I eventually discovered that it was illegal in standard C++. My question is, Why ? I'm not to bothered with the fact that the template specialization should be at namespace scope, but why can't I specialize operator<< without specializing Formatter__. What problem does preventing this solve ? I can find lots of posts saying it is illegal, but none that explains why ? --- [ comp.std.c++ is moderated. To submit articles, try just posting with ] [ your news-reader. If that fails, use mailto:std-c++@ncar.ucar.edu ] [ --- Please see the FAQ before posting. --- ] [ FAQ: http://www.comeaucomputing.com/csc/faq.html ]