Re: Is this legal C++?

From:
Martin Eisenberg <martin.eisenberg@udo.edu>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Mon, 8 Jun 2009 14:24:24 CST
Message-ID:
<h0j0dr$eqk$1@news.eternal-september.org>
arrowtackett wrote:

The function returns the dimension of the vector
passed into it. It seems that the typename parameter "A" is
allowed to be a template itself.


No. It can be an *instance* of a class template because the result
of instantiation is an ordinary class.

template<typename A>
int getDimension(const vector<A> &vec, int dims = 0) {
     ++dims;
     int totalDims = getDimension(vec[0], dims);
     return totalDims;
}

template<typename A>
int getDimension(const A &vec, int dims) {
     return dims;
}


That's a bit circuitous. Also, the vec[0] objects may not exist below
some level -- what you're really operating on is the type, so let's
express it that way:

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>

template<class>
struct VectorDimension {
     static const int dimension = 0;
};

template<class A>
struct VectorDimension<std::vector<A> > {
     static const int dimension = 1 + VectorDimension<A>::dimension;
};

/* The foregoing metafunction replaces your code, but it's still
    convenient to have either or both of the functions below as
    abbreviations in cases where all you need is a runtime value.
  */

template<class A>
int vectorDimension(const A&) {
     return VectorDimension<A>::dimension;
}

template<class A>
int vectorDimension() {
     return VectorDimension<A>::dimension;
}

int main() {
     using namespace std;
     typedef vector<double> V1;
     typedef vector<vector<double> > V2;
     typedef vector<vector<vector<double> > > V3;

     V3 vec3D(2, V2(3, V1(4, 0.0)));

     cout << "The dimension of the vector is: " << vectorDimension(vec3D) << endl;
     cout << "The dimension of the type is: " << vectorDimension<V3>() << endl;

     return 0;
}

Martin

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