Rob Stewart wrote:
From: "Jonathan Turkanis" <technews@kangaroologic.com>
Rob Stewart wrote:
From: "Jonathan Turkanis" <technews@kangaroologic.com>
I don't want to get distracted by the issue of whether the fact that an operator is defined in a friend declaration can be considered an implementation detail. My real question whether I can document the basic_character interface, broadly conceived, as simpler than it really is, and add a note explaining what's missing. I don't want a simple library element to require a huge section of documentation.
I'm not sure you got my point. I don't think you can avoid documenting the full interface of basic_character, including the namespace scope operators.
But if they're defined as friends, there
they're
not technically namespace
scope operators. I guess I can define them at namespace scope just to avoid this problem.
If they are friends defined in a class template, they are, by definition, namespace scope functions.
I guess I mispoke; it's true that they are namespace scope operatrors; however, they do not introduce new names into the namespace, so the operators cannot be explicitly namespace qualified. Therefore users can tell the difference between a friend function defined in class and a function defined outside the class. As a result, if I document them as defined out of class, but implement them in class, the synopsis you suggest would still be fictional. That's why I said that perhaps I should just implement them out of class to avoid complicating the docs. I think this problem is trivial enough that we've alreday spent to much time on it. ;-) You've already helped me a great deal. I'm hoping I can get your input on some more important questions which will be coming up soon. Thanks again! Jonathan