Templates ?

HI
Can anyone give us a quick explanationof this subject


thanks

Templates provide a way to write functions/classes/methods generically. Meaning that they will work for different data types.

An example would be the best. Imagine a method that returns the absolute value of a double:

Code:

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double abs(double d) { return d > 0.0 ? d : -d; }

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This works great for doubles but not so well for other data types. The templatized version would look like:

Code:

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template< class T >
T abs(T t) { return t > (T)0.0 ? t : -t; }

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This will allow you to use abs with int, float, double, complex<>, or any class that behaves numerically (has the right operators).

There's a lot more to templates than this, but this is an easy example to start with.

Jeff

Take a look at one of my artical in which i discuss something about template. I disucss template only respect to ATL, although there are lots more you can do with template.

http://www.codeguru.com/atl/ATL_UndertheHood_3.html

Hope it helps.