Automatic Template Instantiation in DIGITAL C++

Vol. 10 No. 1 1998 The template facility within the C++ language allows the user to provide a template for a class or function and then apply specific arguments to the template to specify a type or function. The process of applying arguments to a template, referred to as template instantiation, causes specific code to be generated to implement the functions and static data members of the instantiated template as needed by the program. Automatic template instantiation relieves the user of determining which template entities need to be instantiated and where they should be instantiated. In this paper, we review the C++ template facility and describe approaches to implementing automatic template instantiation. We follow that with a discussion of the facilities, rationale, and experience of the DIGITAL C++ automatic template instantiation support. We then describe the design of the DIGITAL C++ version 6.0 automatic template instantiation facility and indicate areas to be explored for further improvement.