c++ - When is the "typename" keyword necessary?

Question

This question already has answers here:

Answer 1

Short answer: Whenever referring to a nested name that is a dependent name, i.e. nested inside a template instance with unknown parameter.

Long answer: There are three tiers of entities in C++: values, types, and templates. All of those can have names, and the name alone doesn't tell you which tier of entity it is. Rather, the information about the nature of a name's entity must be inferred from the context.

Whenever this inference is impossible, you have to specify it:

template <typename> struct Magic; // defined somewhere else

template <typename T> struct A
{
  static const int value = Magic<T>::gnarl; // assumed "value"

  typedef typename Magic<T>::brugh my_type; // decreed "type"
  //      ^^^^^^^^

  void foo() {
    Magic<T>::template kwpq<T>(1, 'a', .5); // decreed "template"
    //        ^^^^^^^^
  }
};

Here the names Magic<T>::gnarl, Magic<T>::brugh and Magic<T>::kwpq had to be expliciated, because it is impossible to tell: Since Magic is a template, the very nature of the type Magic<T> depends on T -- there may be specializations which are entirely different from the primary template, for example.

What makes Magic<T>::gnarl a dependent name is the fact that we're inside a template definition, where T is unknown. Had we used Magic<int>, this would be different, since the compiler knows (you promise!) the full definition of Magic<int>.

(If you want to test this yourself, here's a sample definition of Magic that you can use. Pardon the use of constexpr in the specializaation for brevity; if you have an old compiler, feel free to change the static member constant declaration to the old-style pre-C++11 form.)

template <typename T> struct Magic
{
  static const T                    gnarl;
  typedef T &                       brugh;
  template <typename S> static void kwpq(int, char, double) { T x; }
};
template <> struct Magic<signed char>
{
  // note that `gnarl` is absent
  static constexpr long double brugh = 0.25;  // `brugh` is now a value
  template <typename S> static int kwpq(int a, int b) { return a + b; }
};

Usage:

int main()
{
  A<int> a;
  a.foo();

  return Magic<signed char>::kwpq<float>(2, 3);  // no disambiguation here!
}