Available now:
C++ Templates - The Complete Guide, 2nd Edition

by David Vandevoorde, Nicolai M. Josuttis, and Doug Gregor

• Giving guidance on how to use templates in modern C++
• For programmers, who just use templates, who provide class and function templates, and who provide generic and foundation libraries
• Covering C++11, C++14, and C++17
• Explaining all type traits of the C++ Standard Library in depth
• On 750 pages in 34 Chapters (12 Chapters are brand new)

C++ Templates - The Complete Guide

by David Vandevoorde and Nicolai M. Josuttis

Although templates have been part of C++ for well over a decade (and available in various forms for almost as long), they still lead to misunderstanding, misuse and/or controversy. At the same time, they are increasingly found to be powerful instruments for the development of cleaner, faster and smarter software. Indeed, templates have become the corner stone of several new C++ programming paradigms.

Yet we have found that most existing books and articles are at best superficial in their treatment of the theory and application of C++ templates. Even those few books that do an excellent job of surveying various template-based techniques fail to accurately describe how these techniques are supported by the language. As a result, beginning and advanced C++ programmers alike are finding themselves wrestling with templates, attempting to decide why their code is handled unexpectedly.

Our book therefore introduces for the first time a comprehensive introduction to templates and their applications, based on a detailed presentation of the language mechanisms and the techniques it supports. Have you ever wondered how the keyword export works? Are you curious about the details of template specialization? Do you desire guidance in the development of a new template library that will need to serve the needs of a large application? Are you wondering how C++ templates might evolve in the future? Or do you simply want a no-nonsense introduction to C++ templates? Our book aims to answer such questions and many more, revealing C++ templates more lucidly than ever.

Topics will include (see the Table of Contents for details):

• Basics
  • Function Templates
  • Class Templates
  • Nontype Template Parameters
  • Template Template Parameters
  • Using Templates in Practice
  • Template Terminology
• Technical Details
  • Names and Parsing
  • Instantiation
  • Argument Deduction
  • Specialization and Overloading
• Templates and Design
  • Static Polymorphism
• Traits and Policy Classes
• Templates and Inheritance
• Error Handling with Templates
• Metaprograms
• Expression Templates
• And more

David Vandevoorde started programming C++ in the late 1980s. After obtaining a Ph.D. from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he moved on to become the technical lead of Hewlett-Packard's aC++ compiler team. In 1999 he joined the Edison Design Group (EDG) whose C++ compiler technology is widely recognized to be the most advanced in the industry. He is an active member of the C++ Standard Committee and a moderator of the newsgroup comp.lang.c++.moderated (which he co-founded). He is the author of C++ Solutions, the companion to The C++ Programming Language (3rd ed.).

Nicolai M. Josuttis is well known for his best-selling de-facto standard book The C++ Standard Library - A Tutorial and Reference. He is an independent technical consultant who designs object-oriented software for the telecommunication, traffic, finance, and manufacturing industries. He is an active member of the C++ Standard Committee and a partner at System Bauhaus, a German group of prominent object-oriented system development experts. Josuttis has written several other books on object-oriented programming and C++.

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David Vandevoorde, Nicolai M. Josuttis
C++ Templates - The Complete Guide
Addison-Wesley, 2002
ISBN 0-201-73484-2

Also available in:

Polish: ISBN 83-7361-175-4

Russian: ISBN 5-8459-0513-3

Traditional Chinese: ISBN 5-8459-0513-3

Japanese: ISBN 978-4-7981-1922-9