Dave Abrahams wrote:
No, no, no. Sorry to be so hard-line about this, but no.
Here's a quick benchmark comparing clamp with one template type parameter vs. three: #include <iostream> #include <string> using namespace std; #ifdef CLAMP_1_TYPE template <typename T> T clamp(const T& val, const T& min, const T& max) { if (val<min) return min; if (val<max) return val; return max; } #else template <typename T_VAL, typename T_MIN, typename T_MAX> T_VAL clamp(const T_VAL& val, const T_MIN& min, const T_MAX& max) { if (val<min) return min; if (val<max) return val; return max; } #endif int main() { while (cin.good()) { string w; getline(cin,w); // cout << w << "\n"; // No-op version to measure i/o time cout << clamp<string>(w,"Aardvark","zebra") << "\n"; } return 0; } Run times reading /usr/share/dict/words and writing to /dev/null are: No-op: 0.93 3 type clamp: 0.98 1 type clamp: 1.10 So the cost of the extra char*-to-string conversions with the 1-type version of clamp increases the execution time of that function by more than 3X. Personally, I value that performance benefit above the easier-to-describe semantics that you want. Regards, Phil.