Re: SFINAE help

From:
Tim Hockin <thockin@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:50:41 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
<e2b0d669-b07b-4b5f-b9bd-3fc2c28c6bde@v23g2000pro.googlegroups.com>
On Aug 18, 6:08 am, Maxim Yegorushkin <maxim.yegorush...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Tim H wrote:

I have a template class 'Property' that has a ValueType typedef in it.

I have a method of another class that looks like this:

      template<class Tkey>
      const typename Tkey::ValueType &GetProperty() const { ... }

I want to support Properties with void ValueType. I added a
specialization of Property and that works. what fails is when code
calls the above GetProperty<VoidProperty>() method. I get a "no
matching function" error (g++).

It looks like SFINAE is correctly determining that a 'const void &' is
an error. The error message is not very helpful, though.

How can I use SFINAE (or other tricks) to make calls to
GetProperty<VoidProperty>() blow up in a more obvious manner?

Tim H wrote:

 > I have a template class 'Property' that has a ValueType typedef in i=

t.

 >
 > I have a method of another class that looks like this:
 >
 > template<class Tkey>
 > const typename Tkey::ValueType &GetProperty() const { ..=

.. }

 >
 > I want to support Properties with void ValueType. I added a
 > specialization of Property and that works. what fails is when cod=

e

 > calls the above GetProperty<VoidProperty>() method. I get a "no
 > matching function" error (g++).
 >
 > It looks like SFINAE is correctly determining that a 'const void &' =

is

 > an error. The error message is not very helpful, though.
 >
 > How can I use SFINAE (or other tricks) to make calls to
 > GetProperty<VoidProperty>() blow up in a more obvious manner?

There is no SFINAE involved because you instantiate the function template
_explicitly_.

SFINAE works while the compiler is building a set of viable function over=

loads.

In doing so it also tries to _implicitly_ instantiate function templates.=

 If

function template instantiation fails when the template arguments are
substituted with particular types, that Substitution Failure Is Not An Er=

ror,

the function template is simply disregarded and no compiler error produce=

d.

Your example can be made to work without SFINAE. Something like that:

     template<class T>
     struct MakeRefToConst
     {
         typedef T const& type;
     };

     template<>
     struct MakeRefToConst<void>
     {
         typedef void type; // don't make references to void
     };


cute!

     template<class Tkey>
     typename MakeRefToConst<typename Tkey::ValueType>::type GetPro=

perty();

This is a class method, in my situation, which may matter. The
question I have is - what does the body of this function look like?
The generic implementation of this ends with

    return specific->GetValue();

on which the compiler complains about "return-statement with a value,
in function returning 'void'"

How can I provide an alternate body for void ValueType that does not
try to return a value?

     struct A
     {
         typedef int ValueType;
     };

     struct B
     {
         typedef void ValueType;
     };

     int main()
     {
         GetProperty<A>();
         GetProperty<B>();
     }

Instead of MakeRefToConst<> you can use boost type traits.http://www.boos=

t.org/doc/libs/1_39_0/libs/type_traits/doc/html/boost_...

Max

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