Re: Testing existence of template type

From:
"Greg Herlihy" <greghe@pacbell.net>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
3 Dec 2006 06:24:35 -0500
Message-ID:
<1165125434.318072.326590@80g2000cwy.googlegroups.com>
korusef@gmail.com wrote:

Class TypeTraits tries to verify, whether its templated type contains
required types.
It works for non-template types, but I don't know, how to check for the
template one.
So is there any way to check for the existence of TestType::B?

#include <boost/utility/enable_if.hpp>
#include <boost/concept_check.hpp>

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

template <typename T> struct TypeTautology { enum { value = true};};

template <class GP, typename Enable = void>
   struct TypeTraitsImpl
   { enum { value = false }; };

template <class GP>
   struct TypeTraitsImpl<
     GP
     ,typename boost::enable_if<
       TypeTautology<
         typename GP::A//works ok, checks existence of A
         //typename GP::B//compiles, but returns "test: 0"
         //typename GP::template B//doesn't compile
         //typename GP::template <class> B//doesn't compile
       >
     >::type
   >
   { enum { value = true }; };


A template is not a type, so TypeTraitsImpl (since it detects the
existence of types only) is not able to test for the existence of a
template - directly. TypeTraitsImpl is able to test for a template
indirectly, by testing for one of its instantiations (since an
instantiation which would be a type). If any one of its instantiated
types is found (it does not matter which one), then the template itself
must also exist:

     template <class GP>
     struct TypeTraitsImpl<
         GP,
         typename boost::enable_if<
             TypeTautology<
                  typename GP::template B<int> // returns "test: 1"
             >
         >::type
     >

Greg

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