Specialization

Specialization #

Template specialization addresses the need to have different code for different template argument types. Templates define the behavior of families of classes and functions.

• Often it is necessary that special types, non-types, or templates as arguments are treated specially.
• We can fully specialize templates; class templates can even be partially specialized.
• The methods and attributes of specialization don’t have to be identical.
• General or Primary templates can coexist with partially or fully specialized templates.

The compiler prefers fully specialized to partially specialized templates and partially specialized templates to primary templates.

Primary Template #

The primary template has to be declared before the partially or fully specialized templates.

If the primary template is not needed, just a declaration will suffice.

template <typename T, int Line, int Column> class Matrix;

template <typename T>
class Matrix<T, 3, 3>{};

template <>class Matrix<int, 3, 3>{};

Partial specialization #

The partial specialization of a template is only supported for class templates. They contain template arguments and template parameters.