Concerning Partial Template Specialization

From:
Ioannis Gyftos <ioannis.gyftos@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Thu, 26 Jun 2008 06:14:13 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
<698be317-1319-4db9-ba1a-4eb281533e90@f36g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>
Hello,

First the code :)

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////=
////////
// in another header file

namespace LJC{

    struct DomainInterface {
         ... // pure virtual functions
    };

    struct ConnectionTypeInterface {
         ... // pure virtual functions
    };

    struct Domain {
        struct Local : public DomainInterface
        {
             ...
        };
        struct Internet : public DomainInterface
        {
             ...
        };
    };

    struct ConnectionType {
        struct Stream : public ConnectionTypeInterface
        {
             ...
        };
        struct Datagram : public ConnectionTypeInterface
        {
             ...
        };
    };

    .....

}; // end of namespace

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////=
////////

template <
    class DomainInterface,
    class ConnectionTypeInterface

class Connection{
public:

    Connection(const int port);
    Connection(const char* address);

    int init();

private:
    DomainInterface Domain;
    ConnectionTypeInterface ConnectionType;
};

// This works.
template <>
inline Connection<
        LJC::Domain::Internet,
        LJC::ConnectionType::Datagram

::Connection(const char* a)

{
}

// This works.
template <
        class DomainInterface,
        class ConnectionTypeInterface

inline Connection<DomainInterface,
ConnectionTypeInterface>::Connection(const char* a)
{
}

// This does not work with the error message:
// invalid use of incomplete type =91class
Connection<LJC::Domain::Internet, ConnectionTypeInterface>'
// declaration of =91class Connection<LJC::Domain::Internet,
ConnectionTypeInterface>'
template <
        class ConnectionTypeInterface

inline Connection<
    LJC::Domain::Internet,
    ConnectionTypeInterface

::Connection(const char* a)

{
}

// This works
template <
    class DomainInterface,
    class ConnectionTypeInterface

int Connection<DomainInterface, ConnectionTypeInterface>::init()
{
}

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////=
////////

To give some background on what I am trying to do:
I have recently created some TCP, UDP and UnixSocket libraries with
very similar interface for different projects. After getting inspired
by Alexandrescu's book, I was trying to combine those in a single
templated 'Connection' class, which would use such templates to define
protocols and policies (like server/client, blocking/non-blocking
function calls). The general flow of either of these combination is
similar, so I figured I would train myself into creating something
like this.

The specific problem I was trying to solve is the constructor call. A
class instantiated with Domain::Local should be constructed with a
const char* (socket path), but a class instantiated with
Domain::Internet should use an integer (port). To solve this, I though
I would create two constructors, one with char* and one with int. I
would implement a partial template specialization for <Internet,int>
and one for <Local,char*>, so if a user would call it with correct
combination it would work, but if he tried to call a wrong one it
would throw a compiler undefined reference error.

I looked around the web, some books etc, but I could not understand
why am I getting this error. I can use the constructor unspecialized
or fully specialized, but not partially. Full specialization is not
really acceptable since I plan to add more template parameters later
(starting of slow). Most examples I found on the net use ints or bools
while partially specializing, I tried with those but I got the same
result (I am saying this because I stumbled across someone mentioning
that I couldn't use a class for specialization, but I am confused
about what he meant).

I also read something else on the net, which I did not fully
understand; the partial specialization failed because the top-level
class is templated for <class DomainInterface, class
ConnectionTypeInterface>, and there is no top-level class
specialization for the partial-specialized case. Following this, I
tried (with several combinations) something like this:

template <
        class ConnectionTypeInterface

class Connection{
    public:

        Connection(const int port);
        Connection(const char* address);
    ....
};

But I got redefinition error messages.

Can what I describe above be done? If so, what is my mistake and how
can it be corrected? My C++ intuition so far tells me that it does,
but if it's impossible, I haven't thought of a secondary plan so far,
so I might ask later on :P

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