test

Sun Studio 12: C++ User's Guide

6.7.3 Friend Declarations of Template Functions

Templates must be declared before they are used. A friend declaration constitutes a use of the template, not a declaration of the template. A true template declaration must precede the friend declaration. For example, when the compilation system attempts to link the produced object file for the following example, it generates an undefined error for the operator<< function, which is not instantiated.

Example 6–2 Example of Friend Declaration Problem


array.h
// generates undefined error for the operator<< function
#ifndef ARRAY_H
#define ARRAY_H
#include <iosfwd>

template<class T> class array {
    int size;
public:
    array();
    friend std::ostream&
        operator<<(std::ostream&, const array<T>&);
};
#endif

array.cc
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <iostream>

template<class T> array<T>::array() {size = 1024;}

template<class T>
std::ostream&
operator<<(std::ostream& out, const array<T>& rhs)
    {return out <<’[’ << rhs.size <<’]’;}

main.cc
#include <iostream>
#include "array.h"

int main()
{
    std::cout
      << "creating an array of int... " << std::flush;
    array<int> foo;
    std::cout << "done\n";
    std::cout << foo << std::endl;
    return 0;
}

Note that there is no error message during compilation because the compiler reads the following as the declaration of a normal function that is a friend of the array class.


friend ostream& operator<<(ostream&, const array<T>&);

Because operator<< is really a template function, you need to supply a template declaration for prior to the declaration of template class array. However, because operator<< has a parameter of type array<T>, you must precede the function declaration with a declaration of array<T>. The file array.h must look like this:


#ifndef ARRAY_H
#define ARRAY_H
#include <iosfwd>

// the next two lines declare operator<< as a template function
template<class T> class array;
template<class T>
    std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream&, const array<T>&);

template<class T> class array {
    int size;
public:
    array();
    friend std::ostream&
      operator<< <T> (std::ostream&, const array<T>&);
};
#endif