Note: This paper was adopted into draft C++14 on Saturday at the Bristol UK ISO C++ meeting.

A new WG21 paper is available. A copy is linked below, and the paper will also appear in the next normal WG21 mailing. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N3651

Date: 2013-04-19

Variable Templates (Revision 1)

by Gabriel Dos Reis

Excerpt:

C++ has no notation for parameterized constants as direct as for functions or classes. For instance, we would like to represent the mathematical constant with precision dictated by a floating point datatype

template<typename T>
constexpr T pi = T(3.1415926535897932385);

and use it in generic functions, e.g. to compute the area of a circle with a given radius:

template<typename T>
T area_of_circle_with_radius(T r) {
    return pi<T> * r * r;
}

The types of variable templates are not restricted to just builtin types; they can
be user defined types. ...

This report proposes a simple extension to C++: allow variable templates. It makes definitions and uses of parameterized constants much simpler, leading to simplified and more uniform programming rules to teach and to remember.