Modern C++ for Absolute Beginners: A Friendly Introduction to C++ Programming Language and C++11 to C++20 Standards

© Slobodan Dmitrović 2020

S. DmitrovićModern C++ for Absolute Beginnershttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-6047-0_28

28. Templates

Slobodan Dmitrović¹ 

(1)

Belgrade, Serbia

 

Templates are mechanisms to support the so-called generic programming. Generic broadly means we can define a function or a class without worrying about what types it accepts.

We define those functions and classes using some generic type. And when we instantiate them, we use a concrete type. So, we can use templates when we want to define a class or a function that can accept almost any type.

We define a template by typing:

template <typename T>

// the rest of our function or class code

Which is the same as if we used:

template <class T>

// the rest of our function or class code

T here stands ...