c++tag-dispatching

tag dispatch based on conditional_t over is_floating_point


I am getting a strange, Call to function 'Equals' that is neither visible in the template definition nor found by argument-dependent lookup, for a simple tag dispatch implementation.


template <typename T>
bool Equals(T lhs, T rhs){
    return Equals(rhs, lhs, conditional_t<is_floating_point<T>::value, true_type, false_type>{});
}

template <typename T> // for floating
bool Equals(T lhs, T rhs, true_type){
    return abs(lhs - rhs) < 0.01;
}

template <typename T> // for all the other
bool Equals(T lhs, T rhs, false_type){
    return lhs == rhs;
}

what am I doing wrong?


Solution

  • When performing the tag dispatching, you are not instantiating the true_type. But more importantly, you need to change the order of your functions, the tagged functions need to be defined before the function that is performing the dispatching, eg:

    template <typename T> // for floating
    bool Equals(T lhs, T rhs, true_type){
        return abs(lhs - rhs) < 0.01;
    }
    
    template <typename T> // for all the other
    bool Equals(T lhs, T rhs, false_type){
        return lhs == rhs;
    }
    
    // moved down here!
    template <typename T>
    bool Equals(T lhs, T rhs){
        return Equals(lhs, rhs, conditional_t<is_floating_point<T>::value, true_type{}, false_type>{});
    }
    

    That being said, in C++17 and later, you don't need to use tag dispatching at all, you can use if constexpr instead, eg:

    template <typename T>
    bool Equals(T lhs, T rhs){
        if constexpr (is_floating_point_v<T>)
            return abs(lhs - rhs) < 0.01;
        else
            return lhs == rhs;
    }