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Using enum as template type argument in C++

Asked 2010-08-14T23:04:42.000
16

are there any restrictions / problems using an enum as template (type) argument in C++?

Example:

enum MyEnum
{
    A, B, C, D, E
};

template <typename _t>
class MyTemplate
{
public:
   _t value;

   void func(const _t& param) { /* .... */ }
};

// ....

MyTemplate<MyEnum> MyInstance;

My actual problem using MSVC++ via VS 2008 (SP1) on Win32/x86 are several compilation errors (= errors reported by the compiler) in association with classes using enums as template arguments. As my project unfortunately has become a bit complex (you can consider that as a design error :P), the template classes raising these errors are derived, nested and even specialised on a class with enum template parameter.

Trying to build, the compiler reports many wrong/useless errors such as "C2059: syntax error: 'public'" in lines where there is only a comment. Many of them I could fix by replacing in methods similar to the one in the example the const _t& param by _t (i.e. copying the parameter), but neither could I fix all of these errors nor do I have a clue why this "helps". **I know, the simple example above compiles w/o errors.

Using int instead of enum, my project compiles w/o errors.

Thanks in advance for any hint or tip!


Edit:

After all, I seriously consider this as a compiler bug. When I tried to reproduce the errors with simplified code, I got them only in 50 % of all "builds", not very deterministic:
E.g. tried to compile, and it reported these errors. Rebuild - no change. Deleted a comment, build - no change. Rebuild - and then: no errors, compiles fine.

I've already met a few compiler bugs (2 or 3 I guess within 20k lines of code), but this one seems to me very strange.
Any suggestions how to figure out if it is the compiler?

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1 Answer

5

Referring to the original question:

are there any restrictions / problems using an enum as template (type) argument in C++?

I didn't find any - and I don't think there are any. It might turn out to be a bad idea because this technique it is not used that often, so there might be a few (more) compiler bugs relating to this, just as Potatoswatter said.
Consider the following example:

enum MyEnum : int
{
    A, B, C, D
};

template <typename _t> class MyTemplate
{
public:
    void print()
    {
        cout << "not using any specialisation" << endl;
    }
};
    template <> class MyTemplate <MyEnum>
    {
    public:
        void print()
        {
            cout << "MyEnum specialisation" << endl;
        }
    };
    template<> class MyTemplate <int>
    {
    public:
        void print()
        {
            cout << "int specialisation" << endl;
        }
    };

template <typename _t> void print(_t param)
{
    MyTemplate<_t> m;
    m.print();
}


int main()
{
    print(A);
    print(5);

    return 0;
}

The output is:

MyEnum specialisation
int specialisation

For these simple examples, everything works fine and as expected and the enum works perfectly as any other type as template type argument (= I don't see any reason for problems).

Originally, I introduced the example in the question to show what I meant with that question (enum as template type argument, show possible usages as member or method argument type and so on). To provide a bit of background, i.e. why I asked that question (imagine I asked "are there any problems with int"), I mentioned these strange problems compiling my actual project.
I'm sorry I could not extract a snippet of it that is complete in itself and reproducing the errors, the

answered 2010-08-15T14:47:33.170

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