Re: about unary_function

From:
"Igor Tandetnik" <itandetnik@mvps.org>
Newsgroups:
microsoft.public.vc.language
Date:
Sat, 1 Dec 2007 09:03:07 -0500
Message-ID:
<#lQLoLCNIHA.4808@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl>
"George" <George@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:844BB035-EE8A-424D-A10F-F05D13E14C71@microsoft.com

I am wondering what is the practical usage of unary_function?


unary_function just defines a few typedefs. These may be used by
adapters. See e.g. unary_negate, note how it takes Predicate as a
template parameter and expects Predicate::argument_type to be defined.
When you write your own predicate, you can introduce this typedef by
hand, or you can inherit from unary_function that does it for you.

My question is, a class like

class Foo : public std::unary_function<class A, class B>

is always the same (could use similar implementation) to

template <class A, class B> class Foo


Yes. The second class just won't work with STL adapters.

So we could always use the alternative approach to replace
unary_function.


unary_function is trivial: it just defines two typedefs, it doesn't
introduce any behavior. Yes, you can define those typedefs yourself.
unary_function is just for convenience.
--
With best wishes,
    Igor Tandetnik

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