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Asked: 2026-05-21T17:48:47+00:00

I have a series of small library modules designed to handle very specific tasks.

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I have a series of small library “modules” designed to handle very specific tasks. A single module usually consists of just a .h and a .cpp, and possibly another set to provide relevant non-friend, non-member functions that the user might find useful.

For example, Foo.h might declare a class called Foo, that Foo.cpp defines, and FooUtilities.h might declare a function that uses Foo which is defined by FooUtilities.cpp.

Normally to use these modules in my programs, I add the .h and .cpp to my project and #include the .h in whatever files need it. However, for larger programs that use more potentially-interdependent modules, this is growing to be a big inconvenience. Therefore, I’d like to compile it all as a single monolithic static or dynamic library so I can just add the library file to my project, set the header search directories to folders that contain the aforementioned .h files, and compile.

Seems pretty simple, right? All I’d have to do is start a new project with a static/dynamic library as its build target and then add all the appropriate files. The .cpp files, which #include the .h files anyway, will be compiled and added to the final product.

However, some of the modules use templates and therefore have to use .tpp instead of .cpp. The .tpp files are only meant for organization and are #included by their respective header files, which is the opposite of how the normal modules are handled. Because of this, just adding them to my library project won’t compile anything.

How can I work around this? Should I have a CompileThis.cpp file that includes all the modules that use templates? If so, should this file also include the non-template modules? It seems like this could rapidly become an organizational mess.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Many compilers cannot “precompile” templates into libraries. My best suggestion is to treat them like header files; header files are not compiled into libraries, they are just included.

    I compile code into a library when the amount of changes is minimal. This often speeds up the build process since those files don’t need to be compiled again (and again…).

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