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Document number: N3552

Date: 2013-03-12

Introducing Object Aliases

by Walter Brown

Excerpt:

A number of years ago, [Bro05] explored a prospective language feature then known as Object Templates. That feature died on the vine due to healthy skepticism voiced by EWG, as well as the usual lack of cycles to develop the idea much further. However, the original underlying issue is still present in C++11, after even many additional years of experimental effort to achieve the desired effect via C++03 or (more recently) C++11 syntax.

Fortunately, C++11 also points the way toward a more general solution, well beyond that envisioned over a decade ago. Accordingly, this paper incorporates and updates a significant fraction of the earlier [Bro05] in introducing a different proposed C++ feature. Inspired by the C++11 template alias for types, we will propose a template alias for objects, known in brief as an object alias.