Question

I am trying to write a generic sort function in C++ using templates, but I am stuck in writing the greater function which returns true if lhs > rhs

template <typename T>
bool Sorter<T>::greater(T lhs, T rhs)
{
    return lhs > rhs;
}

The above code will take care of simple types such as int, long. What should I do so that the code works for std::string, std::string&, const char *. A code sample will be a great help.

Answer 1

I’d say the only one you’d have to worry about is const char*, std::string should already have operator> defined somewhere… (normally in <string>)

For const char*, provide a specialization.. e.g..

template <>
bool Sorter<const char*>::greater(const char* lhs, const char* rhs)
{
  return std::strcmp(lhs, hs) > 0;
}