Question

I’m trying to learn templates and I’ve run into this confounding error. I’m declaring some functions in a header file and I want to make a separate implementation file where the functions will be defined.

Here’s the code that calls the header (dum.cpp):

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <string>
#include "dumper2.h"

int main() {
    std::vector<int> v;
    for (int i=0; i<10; i++) {
        v.push_back(i);
    }
    test();
    std::string s = ", ";
    dumpVector(v,s);
}

Now, here’s a working header file (dumper2.h):

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <vector>

void test();

template <class T> void dumpVector(const std::vector<T>& v,std::string sep);

template <class T> void dumpVector(const std::vector<T>& v, std::string sep) {
    typename std::vector<T>::iterator vi;

    vi = v.cbegin();
    std::cout << *vi;
    vi++;
    for (;vi<v.cend();vi++) {
        std::cout << sep << *vi ;
    }
    std::cout << "\n";
    return;
}

With implementation (dumper2.cpp):

#include <iostream>
#include "dumper2.h"

void test() {
    std::cout << "!olleh dlrow\n";
}

The weird thing is that if I move the code that defines dumpVector from the .h to the .cpp file, I get the following error:

g++ -c dumper2.cpp -Wall -Wno-deprecated
g++ dum.cpp -o dum dumper2.o -Wall -Wno-deprecated
/tmp/ccKD2e3G.o: In function `main':
dum.cpp:(.text+0xce): undefined reference to `void dumpVector<int>(std::vector<int, std::allocator<int> >, std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> >)'
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [dum] Error 1

So why does it work one way and not the other? Clearly the compiler can find test(), so why can’t it find dumpVector?

Answer 1

The problem you’re having is that the compiler doesn’t know which versions of your template to instantiate. When you move the implementation of your function to x.cpp it is in a different translation unit from main.cpp, and main.cpp can’t link to a particular instantiation because it doesn’t exist in that context. This is a well-known issue with C++ templates. There are a few solutions:

1) Just put the definitions directly in the .h file, as you were doing before. This has pros & cons, including solving the problem (pro), possibly making the code less readable & on some compilers harder to debug (con) and maybe increasing code bloat (con).

2) Put the implementation in x.cpp, and #include "x.cpp" from within x.h. If this seems funky and wrong, just keep in mind that #include does nothing more than read the specified file and compile it as if that file were part of x.cpp In other words, this does exactly what solution #1 does above, but it keeps them in seperate physical files. When doing this kind of thing, it is critical that you not try to compile the #included file on it’s own. For this reason, I usually give these kinds of files an hpp extension to distinguish them from h files and from cpp files.

File: dumper2.h

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <vector>

void test();
template <class T> void dumpVector( std::vector<T> v,std::string sep);
#include "dumper2.hpp"

File: dumper2.hpp

template <class T> void dumpVector(std::vector<T> v, std::string sep) {
  typename std::vector<T>::iterator vi;

  vi = v.begin();
  std::cout << *vi;
  vi++;
  for (;vi<v.end();vi++) {
    std::cout << sep << *vi ;
  }
  std::cout << "\n";
  return;

}

3) Since the problem is that a particular instantiation of dumpVector is not known to the translation unit that is trying to use it, you can force a specific instantiation of it in the same translation unit as where the template is defined. Simply by adding this: template void dumpVector<int>(std::vector<int> v, std::string sep); … to the file where the template is defined. Doing this, you no longer have to #include the hpp file from within the h file:

File: dumper2.h

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <vector>

void test();
template <class T> void dumpVector( std::vector<T> v,std::string sep);

File: dumper2.cpp

template <class T> void dumpVector(std::vector<T> v, std::string sep) {
  typename std::vector<T>::iterator vi;

  vi = v.begin();
  std::cout << *vi;
  vi++;
  for (;vi<v.end();vi++) {
    std::cout << sep << *vi ;
  }
  std::cout << "\n";
  return;
}

template void dumpVector<int>(std::vector<int> v, std::string sep);

By the way, and as a total aside, your template function is taking a vector by-value. You may not want to do this, and pass it by reference or pointer or, better yet, pass iterators instead to avoid making a temporary & copying the whole vector.