From 8983827349307636486 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f78e5,9da47553ab59d368 X-Google-Attributes: gidf78e5,public From: stephen.clamage@sun.com (Steve Clamage) Subject: Re: template member function syntax Date: 1999/02/02 Message-ID: <797cj1$rpk$1@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 439828519 X-NNTP-Posting-Host: taumet.eng.sun.com Approved: stephen.clamage@sun.com (comp.std.c++) References: X-UID: 0000000001 X-Status: $$$T Organization: Sun Microsystems Inc., Mountain View, CA Newsgroups: comp.std.c++ Originator: clamage@taumet sbnaran@localhost.localdomain (Siemel Naran) writes: >On 02 Feb 99 04:09:35 GMT, hursh wrote: >> myType mytmp = MyObj.template myFunc(); >> ^^^^^^^^? >> I understand the the syntax error of myType being after the >>less-than operator, but putting the template keyword in the invocation >>just seems plain ugly. >The 'template' is required to make life easier for the compiler >writer, I think. No, it is required to allow parsing of general expressions like A . B < C > ( D ) If A has a static member B, A.B is its address. The address could be compared with C, and the result compared with D (the parens are redundant). But if B is a template function member of A, we have a function call as in the original code. You can't tell in general whether the '<' is a template bracket or a less-than. To make the determination, you need to know whether myFunc is the name of a template. To know that you need to know what scopes to look in. To know that, you need to know whether the < is a template bracket. The 'template' keyword breaks the circular dependency. The name lookup rules are complex and context-dependent. The template keyword is necessary in this case to be able to parse the code. -- Steve Clamage, stephen.clamage@sun.com [ 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://reality.sgi.com/austern_mti/std-c++/faq.html ]