On Dec 7, 2008, at 6:48 PM, Thomas Klimpel wrote:
in boost, many template functions (but not all) use inline. (Example from boost/accumulators/framework/accumulator_set.hpp that uses inline: template<typename Args> inline accumulator_visitor<Args> const make_accumulator_visitor (Args const &args) { return accumulator_visitor<Args>(args); }
Example from boost/algorithm/minmax.hpp hat doesn't use inline: template <typename T> tuple< T const&, T const& > minmax(T const& a, T const& b) { return (b<a) ? make_tuple(cref(b),cref(a)) : make_tuple(cref (a),cref(b)); } )
Is there a special reason why inline is used for template functions? I would expect that current compilers know better when inlining a function provides a benefit than the programmer. So I guess there is a better reason for using the inline keyword before template function than just speculative performance optimization, but I can't figure it out. Can anybody help me?
Template stuff generally has to be defined in a header file ("export" notwithstanding). My guideline for "inline" is whether or not I would use for a particular function if that function had no template stuff about it. (In other words, would I leave it "inline" in a header or non-inline in a mandatory source file.)
Most libs only prepend inline before template functions, but ublas prepends nearly every member function with the macro "BOOST_UBLAS_INLINE", which expands to "inline". Is there a reason why ublas uses this macro?
-- Daryle Walker Mac, Internet, and Video Game Junkie darylew AT hotmail DOT com