[RESOLVED] Template Horrors

[Etherous]

It seems all my problems involve templates. Anyways, my problem is whenever and wherever I put:

std::vector<T>::iterator iter;

I get the compiler error:
error: expected ';' before 'iter'

I've tried putting the above code directly in a template method of a template class and directly as a member of the same class in it's definition. Each time I get the same error where it occures. I feel stupid because I think I'm missing something very fundamental here. Can anyone help? Thanks.

[laserlight]

My guess is that you need to disambiguate with typename since the nested name iterator depends on T, which is presumably the template parameter. For example:

typename std::vector<T>::iterator iter;

[Etherous]

Would you mind elaborating a bit on this? I'm not sure what this will do.

[Codeplug]

We need to see the bigger context in which that's being used. Is this inside another template class? etc... Post all relevant code.

gg

[Etherous]

Well, I don't think much of it is very relevant, but here you go:

template<class T> class SomeClass
{
public:
    void someMethod (void)
    {
        ...
        std::vector<T>::iterator iter;   // I get the error everywhere. Whether I put it here...
        ...
    }
protected:
    std::vector<T>::iterator iter;   // .. Or here, it doesn't matter
};

Edit:
It looks like laserlight was right, because it will work now. It's just that I don't understand why I needed to do that.

[laserlight]

It's just that I don't understand why I needed to do that.

Because std::vector<T>::iterator can be interpreted as a non-type name (e.g., a variable name) or as a type name, and the rules say that it should be interpreted as a non-type name by default.

[Etherous]

Because std::vector<T>::iterator can be interpreted as a non-type name (e.g., a variable name) or as a type name, and the rules say that it should be interpreted as a non-type name by default.

Okay, this is making more sense. For anyone else with this problem, I just stumbled on a good bit of reading that explains this very well:
http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~driscoll/typename.html