Re: Meyers effective C++, templates, np-complete

On Apr 14, 9:22 pm, Todd Mars <tamn...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Scott Meyers in Effective C++ at the start of the templates section
> says that C++ templates are np-complete in the compiler processing.
> Does this mean that the use of templates can cause the compile to
> execute for an infinite loop or near infinite loop?
> Todd.

Templates are turing complete, which means you can execute an infinite
loop (up to the compilers recursion depth). For instance, this:

template<int i> struct Infinite
{
	static const int num = Infinite<i>::num;
};

static const int loop = Infinite<0>::num;

causes my compiler to run out of memory and die.

-Ed

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