Inside the C++ Object Model

Chapter 7. On the Cusp of the Object Model

In this chapter, I discuss three prominent extensions to the language that affect the C++ Object Model: templates, exception handling (EH), and runtime type identification (RTTI). EH (and RTTI, which in a sense is a side effect of EH) is an exception to the other language features covered here in that I have never had the opportunity to actually implement it. My discussion, therefore, relies on [CHASE94], [LAJOIE94a], [LAJOIE94b], [LENKOV92], and [SUN94a].

Templates

C++ programming styles and idioms have been profoundly transformed since the introduction of templates (with cfront, Release 3.0, in 1991) and experience using them. Originally viewed as a support for container classes such as Lists and Arrays, ...