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C++ Templates as Partial Evaluation by Veldhuizen, Todd L. is a scholarly article available to read on EtoBox.

What is C++ Templates as Partial Evaluation about?

This paper explores the relationship between C++ templates and partial evaluation. Templates were designed to support generic programming, but unintentionally provided the ability to perform compile-time computations and code generation. These features are completely accidental, and as a result their syntax is awkward. By recasting these features in terms of partial evaluation, a much simpler syntax can be achieved. C++ may be regarded as a two-level language in which types are first-class values. Template instantiation resembles an offline partial evaluator. This paper describes preliminary work toward a single mechanism based on Partial Evaluation which unifies generic programming, compile-time computation and code generation. The language Catat is introduced to illustrate these ideas.

Author

Veldhuizen, Todd L.

Published

1998

Language

EN