An Introduction to Variadic Templates in C++0x

f you've been programming in C++ for any time at all then you're familiar with variadic functions, functions (such as printf) that can take a variable number of arguments. C99 introduced variadic macros, which also take a variable number of arguments. C++0x takes this concept a step further with the introduction of variadic templates, where the number of template arguments is not specified when you write the template.

You declare the variadic part of a variadic template with an ellipsis (...) just like with a variadic function, though in this case it goes in the template parameter list:

template<typename ... Args>
class my_class
{};

You can then specify the arguments when you use the template. This approach is the same one you would use for a normal template, except that you can specify as many or as few arguments as you like:

my_class<int> mc1;
my_class<double,char,std::string> mc2;

Just like with variadic functions, you don't even have to pass any arguments:

my_class<> mc3;

You can have other non-variadic template parameters too. After arguments have been allocated to the non-variadic parameters, the remainders constitute the parameter pack for the variadic parameter:

template<typename T,typename U,typename ... Args>
class x
{};

x<int,char,double,std::string> x1; // Args is <double,std::string>
x<std::string,my_class<int> > x2; // Args is empty

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