This sounds exactly like what I am trying to do, I already split the declarations into .h files and the definitions into .hpp. Can you give a brief example of using a single .cpp file for compilation? Is this done like MSVC stdafx files?
Although i use visual studio, I don't know how stdafx files work. I get rid of them (when autogenerated) as soon as possible ! Now considering your question on how to compile template class instantiations, the first idea is to use the auto-compilation command (for a lack of a better expression). Suppose you have two files myclass.h and myclass.hpp that define a class template myclass requiring one argument. What you want is to use myclass<int> somewhere (or everywhere, it doesn't matter) in your project. You may create myclass.cpp as follows : #include "myclass.hpp" // Obviously, myclass.hpp includes myclass.h template myclass<int>; In most cases, this is enough. This command instantiates all non-template member functions of myclass for the particular instantiation myclass<int>. Note that, if you do have template methods that are called by non-template methods, you should be fine. But of course, this is only the simple case. Concepts are pretty handy when it comes to dealing with *those* not-so-simple cases. Let's define a concept for what myclass should do (in concept_myclass.hpp for example) template<typename verify_class> class concept_myclass { void constraints( verify_class& verify ) { compute_type i = verify.compute( 3, 2 ); double d = verify.get_square_root( i ); // ... and so forth } typedef typename verify_class::compute_type compute_type; }; This is a fairly simple example, but you get the idea. Now you can create a cpp file to "compile" your hpp file : #include "myclass.hpp" #include "concept_myclass.hpp" template concept_myclass<myclass<int> >; Now everything should work the way you wish it would (i hope !). At some point i'll try and make this really compatible with the concept check library, but i haven't had time to look into that so far. I personnally use a configuration file which contains typedefs for pretty much all template class instantiations. I believe It reduces the number of possible errors when you decide to change the template arguments. Using this, the previous cpp file becomes : #include "myclass.hpp" #include "concept_myclass.hpp" #include "config.hpp" template concept_myclass<config::myclass>; That's all !!! Benoît Casoetto David : i take good note of boost recommandations on file naming, thanks !