Jason Hise wrote:
The following specialization fails to compile on .NET 2002. Is there a good reason as to why, and if not, is there a suggested work around?
template < typename T > class A { };
template < typename T > class B { };
template < typename T > class A < B < T > > // this is the specialization { };
This is partial specialization, which VC didn't support until version 7.1. If you're working from scratch, there are some workarounds using nested templates; see, e.g., http://www.boost.org/boost/pending/ct_if.hpp. Using mpl, you might do: template<typename T> struct is_B; template<typename T> struct A_primary { /* ... */ }; template<typename T> struct A_specialized { /* ... */ }; template<typename T> struct A : mpl::if_< is_B<T>, A_primary <T>, A_specialized<T> >::type { /* Ctors, etc. */ } Here it is often sufficient to implement is_B<> using the "sizeof trick". If you are the author of B, and you need is_B<T> to be defined exactly, you can give B<T> a typedef identifying T and use is_same<> together with has_xxx from mpl. I'd say more but I have to run. Jonathan