TITLE: New terminology for template declaration/definition


This tip describes some new terminology for declaring, defining, and
using templates. It is provided here only to make things more confusing.
To make things brief, these terms are "defined" by example. For more
information, see "The C++ Report", v5, n2, p. 23 - 26.


1. template declarations

	function template
	
		template <class T> T* save (const T&);

	class template

		template <class T> class stack;


2. template definitions

	class template definition

		template <class T> class stack {
		  public:
			void push (const T&);
			T pop ();
			stack ();
			~stack ();
		  private:
			T* data;
			unsigned top;
		};

	function template definition

		template <class T> T* save (const T& tval)
		{
			return new T (tval);
		}

	template member function definition

		template <class T>
		void stack<T> :: push (const T& val)
		{
			data [++top] = val;
		}

3. specialization

	extern stack<int> siv;

4. user specialization

	class stack<char> {
	  public:
		void push (const char); // note not char&
		char pop ();
		stack ();
		~stack ();
	  private:
		char* big_data;
		char [16] short_data;  (sic)
		unsigned top;
	};

5. instantiation

The final term we need is instantiation, which we will use to describe the
process of generating the code needed to implement the particular template
specializations the programmer needs. This should be transparent to the 
programmer...