CGAL users discussion list

[Louis Lavery <>]

Laurent Rineau (GeometryFactory) wrote:
> On Tuesday 30 March 2010 11:30:43 Louis Lavery wrote:
> > Neither can I, but that's not what I'm suggesting.
> >
> > All I mean is that you can do that same as you do for non-template code.
> > You put the declaration in a header (so as users can see that) and the
> > definition in a .cpp (as the users don't really want/need to see that).
> >
> > Of course, you need to #include the .cpp in the header (I think it's
> > natural to do that at the foot of the header) and put a #include guard
> > in the .cpp (to avoid recursion).
> >
> > I find it a lot easier to work this way, both as an author and as a
> > user of a library.
> >
> > I know some others also use this style (sorry, haven't a ref to hand)
> > and it works just fine. As I say, it reduces clutter in the header,
> > and that's important to me for my users.
>
> OK.
>
> Some CGAL classes are wrote like that. Unfortunately, Visual C++ has a bug: it 
> cannot handle definitions of member templates functions outside of the scope 
> of the class definition. 

Then put the template member functions in the class definition.
It's not a reason not to use separate header and .cpp files, at
least not for me.

Louis.

P.S. vc8 seems doesn't seem to have that bug.