Re: Template<void> [ODE893JFHASTE]

From:
Alberto Ganesh Barbati <AlbertoBarbati@libero.it>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
6 May 2006 11:21:22 -0400
Message-ID:
<8lI6g.110285$A83.2586737@twister1.libero.it>
Jakob Bieling ha scritto:

     I thought it was illegal to use void as the template parameter? I
could not find any of that sort in my quick search in the Standard, tho
.. But I remember having worked around this before.


You can't use void as template parameter of the templates of the C++
standard library because 17.4.3.6/2 explicitly states that the effects
are undefined. However, the use of void as a template parameter in user
defined templates is perfectly legal. Of course, as any other type, when
it's substituted in the template it might produce ill-formed constructs,
but that's a completely different issue. For example:

   template <typename T>
   struct Value
   {
     T x;
   };

   template <typename T>
   struct Pointer
   {
     T* x;
   };

   Value<void> illformed; // error: member of incomplete type
   Pointer<void> legal; // ok

HTH,

Ganesh

PS: don't know for sure, but I expect 17.4.3.6/2 to be relaxed in some
way in the future to take into account some TR1 facilities like
tr1::shared_ptr<> and the type traits library which do allow incomplete
types as their parameter (what would be the use of tr1::is_void<> if
type void wasn't allowed? ;)

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