Re: Static method vs. template function

From:

benben <benhonghatgmaildotcom@nospam.invalid>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.c++.moderated

Date:

12 Jan 2007 10:24:36 -0500

Message-ID:

<45a78a61$0$16554$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>

Chris wrote:

Just curious about technicalities here, but is there technically a
difference between a static method that gets bound per class and a
template method that gets instantiated per type?

That is, if we have:

class A
{
public:
static void untemplateMethod(A const& object);
};

template<typename DataType>
void templateMethod(DataType const& object)
{
};

There is only one untemplateMethod for every A, and also if there is a
subclass of A, the subclasses get their own as well.
But, templateMethod gets instantiated only for each object that it gets
used for as well, so in a sense only one exists for each class type as
well.

Is this a misunderstanding? Is one preferred over the other?

Well, in the sense of per-type-ness, yes.

But the whole point of using the template is that you write once, and
the compiler does all the rest for you. With the static non-template
function you've gotta write one for every class.

Regards,
Ben

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