Question

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Where and why do I have to put the “template” and “typename” keywords?

I’ve (had to 🙂 ) became a C++ developer a few weeks ago (I had some experiences before but not too much, I was more in Java), trying to learn everything which counts and to develop as efficient as I can. So excuse if my question is totally dumb. I have a problem with a simple example template class:

template<typename T>
class SameCounter {
private:
    map<T,int> counted;
public:
    SameCounter(list<T> setup) {
        for(list<T>::iterator it = setup.begin(); it != setup.end(); it++) {
            counted[*it]++;
        }
    }
    map<T,int>::const_iterator& begin() { // line 25
        return counted.begin();
    }
    map<T,int>::const_iterator& end() {
        return counted.end();
    }
};

...
// using the class
Reader rdr;
rdr.Read();
SameCounter<char> sc(rdr.GetData());

I get some error when I’m compiling it:

Error   3   error C4430: missing type specifier - int assumed. Note: C++ does not support default-int   d:\learn_cpp\examples\gyakorlas_1.cpp   25
Error   2   error C2143: syntax error : missing ';' before '&'  d:\learn_cpp\examples\gyakorlas_vizsga\gyakorlas_1.cpp  25

(both of them twice)

I don’t have a clue for it, something is wrong maybe with the templating I assume, because if I create the SameCounter as a normal class it is totally ok. Thank you for the help.

Answer 1

This should help you:

typename map<T,int>::const_iterator& begin() {
    return counted.begin();
}
typename map<T,int>::const_iterator& end() {
    return counted.end();
}

C++ templates are tricky. T is a template parameter, and map<T, int>::const_iterator could possibly mean different things (type names, but also – say – static members…) depending on what T you pass.

That’s why in templates sometimes you need to make your intention clear and indicate that you actually mean “const_iterator is a type and I want a reference to it”. The keyword ‘typename’ allows for that.

See: http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~driscoll/typename.html

---

To make your code simpler and avoid reduce the need for typename, you could start with:

private:
    typedef std::map<T, int> MapType;
    MapType counted;

and then just go with

typename MapType::const_iterator &begin() {

Unfortunately this typename still needs to be here, you’d need further typedef typename for each dependent type to remove it from further declarations (see @rhalbersma‘s answer).

---

Following @rhalbersma‘s comment, let me also emphasise that you should return these iterators by-value. Returning references to temporaries causes undefined behaviour because the object gets out of scope and you end up with a “dangling reference”.

So make it:

typename MapType::const_iterator begin() {