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How do you create a static template member function that performs actions on a template class?

Asked 2009-01-28T19:20:17.237
25

I'm trying to create a generic function that removes duplicates from an std::vector. Since I don't want to create a function for each vector type, I want to make this a template function that can accept vectors of any type. Here is what I have:

//foo.h

Class Foo {

template<typename T>
static void RemoveVectorDuplicates(std::vector<T>& vectorToUpdate);

};

//foo.cpp

template<typename T>
void Foo::RemoveVectorDuplicates(std::vector<T>& vectorToUpdate) {
for(typename T::iterator sourceIter = vectorToUpdate.begin(); (sourceIter != vectorToUpdate.end() - 1); sourceIter++) {
        for(typename T::iterator compareIter = (vectorToUpdate.begin() + 1); compareIter != vectorToUpdate.end(); compareIter++) {
            if(sourceIter == compareIter) {
                vectorToUpdate.erase(compareIter);
            }
        }
    }
}

//SomeOtherClass.cpp

#include "foo.h"

...

void SomeOtherClass::SomeFunction(void) {
    std::vector<int> myVector;

    //fill vector with values

    Foo::RemoveVectorDuplicates(myVector);
}

I keep getting a linker error, but it compiles fine. Any ideas as to what I'm doing wrong?

UPDATE: Based on the answer given by Iraimbilanja, I went and rewrote the code. However, just in case someone wanted working code to do the RemoveDuplicates function, here it is:

//foo.h

Class Foo {

    template<typename T>
    static void RemoveVectorDuplicates(T& vectorToUpdate){
        for(typename T::iterator sourceIter = vectorToUpdate.begin(); sourceIter != vectorToUpdate.end(); sourceIter++) {
            for(typename T::iterator compareIter = (sourceIter + 1); compareIter != vectorToUpdate.end(); compareIter++) {
            if(*sourceIter == *compareIter) {
                compareIter = vectorToUpdate.erase(compareIter);
            }
        }
    }
};

Turns out that if I specify std::vector in the signature, the iterator

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1 Answer

0

Unrelated to your problem (which has been explained already), why is this a static function rather than residing globally in a namespace? This would be somewhat C++-ier.

answered 2009-01-28T19:48:31.623

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