Re: Template static inheritance problem

From:
Yechezkel Mett <ymett.on.usenet@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:14:29 CST
Message-ID:
<48e3721b-f4d7-4e77-b694-4f5ec96fc397@c34g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>
On Dec 22, 7:16 am, fgungor <neurore...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi I am having problems with the following code

class IRenderer
{
public:
        virtual int Init() = 0;
        virtual int Shutdown() = 0;

};

template <typename TConcreteDevice>
class Device
{
        typename TConcreteDevice::TDevice *m_pDevicePtr;

public:

        operator typename TConcreteDevice::TDevice *()
        {
                return m_pDevicePtr;
        }

};

class RendererDevice : Device<RendererDevice>
{
public:
        typedef IRenderer TDevice;

};

So basically I want to have several types of Devices and every Device
should expose the type of the underlying object it uses.

What is wrong with this code ? It tells me that RendererDevice has no
member named TDevice !?


1. The line

        typename TConcreteDevice::TDevice *m_pDevicePtr;

has to be understood when Device<> is instantiated.
2. Device<RendererDevice> is instantiated in the line

class RendererDevice : Device<RendererDevice>

3. In the above line RendererDevice is not yet complete, and you
cannot access any of its members.

A better compiler error message would have said explicitly that the
class is not complete.

Solutions:

1. Hold m_pDevicePtr by pointer-to-void. static_cast it to
TConcreteDevice::TDevice* in a member function. (Bodies of member
functions are instantiated later, even if they are written in the
class definition.) It's not very pleasant to have void* lying around,
but it is safe -- it's private and you can be sure to initialise and
access it correctly.

2. Move

        typedef IRenderer TDevice;

into a traits class.

3. Pass IRenderer explicitly as a parameter to Device<>.

Yechezkel Mett

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