Thread: Important Note(A post to end all newbie topics concerning......)

I don't see the need for you to do this for templates. If you want to have your templates defined in a different file, that's fine.

Right now, none of the compilers I know of will allow you to write template code will compile in the .cpp because the compiler needs to know the types to create the object file. For example try to compile this

Code:

// tmp.h
template<class T>
class Tmp {
       Tmp();
};

// tmp.cpp
#include "tmp.h"
template<class T>
Tmp<T>::Tmp()
{
}

That's why the stl and most template code does something like this

Code:

// tmp.h
template<class T>
class Tmp {
       Tmp();
};

#include "tmp.cpp"

// tmp.cpp

template<class T>
Tmp<T>::Tmp()
{
}

As for inline functions, I don't get it. Why the heck you want to an include statement for a .c file that defines inline functions, if the compiler will replace all calls to those functions within that same code file?

If the whole class is inline then it's probably better to have the implementation in a different file. I guess it really depends on what your doing.

Finally, if all else fails, what's taken your from renaming those files to .h and feel a little better about it?

Someone might be tempted to include the .h file which would be bad because you only want the class definition to include the .cpp file.