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The All-in-One Guide to C++20

Templates in Modules

Explore how templates are handled within C++20 modules to improve code organization and compilation efficiency. Understand the role of modules in making template definitions available during instantiation, and see practical examples that demonstrate these improvements.

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I often hear the question: How are templates exported by modules? When you instantiate a template, its definition must be available. This is the reason that template definitions are hosted in headers. Conceptually, the usage of a template has the following structure

Without modules

C++
// templateSum.h
  
template <typename T, typename T2>
auto sum(T fir, T2 sec) { 
    return fir + sec;
}
C++
// sumMain.cpp
#include <templateSum.h>
int main() {
    sum(1, 1.5);  
}
...