Templates Class Templates Used to specify generic class types where class members data types can be specified as parameters, e.g. here is a generic List class template, template // t is a generic data type parameter class List { int size; t* list; // a pointer to an object of the generic type t public: // example member functions List(int sz = 10); t& operator[](int); }; // member functions bodies must be preceded by the template keyword template List ::List(int sz){ list = new t [size = sz];} template t& List ::operator [](int j){return list[j];} main(){ List ch_arr(80); List dbl_flt(15); List x; // instantiate 3 classes and three objects

Templates Class Templates (cont.) Template class instantiation List Object_name(parameters); // instantiates a List // class at compile time, the generic type t is replaced by type, then the // object is instantiated as shown in the above main() function Non-type parameters in class templates template List { t list[size]; // statically allocated list of type t elements // the size of the list and the type of elements are determined at the class // instantiation. In the above, the size of the list is specified at compile // time no need for dynamic memory allocation, this avoids run time //errors due to new and eliminates execution overhead for memory //allocation List b;// instantiates the class List with float type // members and a size of 500 and instantiates an object b of this type

Templates Templates and inheritance An explicit Base class instantiated from a class template, e.g., class Integer_Stack: public List {//………}; // the base class is // instantiated from a the template List class A template derived class with a non-template base class template class D: public B {// data members, member function // arguments, return types in D can take the generic type t, inherited members // of B all have explicit types Both, a template derived class with a template base class template class Stack: public List { public: Stack(int sz): List (sz){} //references with formal parameters }; // the following statement instantiates class Stack and class List Stack a(100); // object a is instantiated from these classes

Templates Templates and friend functions and classes friend functions of a template class template class X{ friend void f2(X &); // declares f2() as friend to X type objects }; X a; // assumes the existance of the function f2(X &), this //function can have access to all members of X type objects Friend classes template class ListNode{ type Item; ListNode * Next; template friend class List; // all classes of List are // friends of class ListNode, this is dangerous since type might be // different from T, it is better to do the following instead, friend class List // only the List class where T is replaced by type will be friend of all classes of the template class ListNode

Templates Templates, Container Classes, and Class Libraries A container class is one that operates on a collection of one or more objects of a particular type, e.g., Lists, Stacks, Linked Lists, Queues, etc., Container classes are supported in the compiler’s class library as class templates, e.g. in Borland C++ the directory \classlib\Include have several header files which defines container class templates, these can be used as follows, #include void main(){ TStackAsVector x(100); x.push(50); x.push(30); while(!x.IsEmpty()) cout << x.pop() << endl;}

Templates Function templates A function template is used to specify generic functions in the same way as class templates is used to specify generic classes, for example, template T abs(T n){ // a generic function which returns the absolute value of object n // of type T return (n < 0) ? -n : n; } void main(){ int x = -500; long y = , double z = -1.87; cout << abs(x) << “\t” << abs(y) << “\t” << abs(z); // three different overloaded functions named abs are generated at compile // time, these are abs(int), abs(long), and abs(double)