In modern C++, namespaces are a kind of library or framework. They are useful to hold the same name of classes, methods, and other entities in different namespaces. C++11 standard and other standards above, allow the inline keyword in a namespace definition and in this post, we explain how to use inline namespaces in modern C++.
Table of Contents
What is a namespace in modern C++?
Namespaces in C++ allow users to group entities like classes, methods, variables and functions in a narrower namespace scope instead of using in the global scope. This prevents name conflicts between classes, methods, functions and variables in large projects. Namespaces organize the elements of developers into different logical scopes referred to by names. Thus, different users (or namespaces) may use same method names and variables in different running processes.
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#include <iostream> namespace nsA { void myf() { std::cout << "this is myf() function in nsA namespace\n"; } } int main() { nsA::myf(); // Let's use a method or function from nsA namespace system("pause"); return 0; } |
If you are new to namespaces, you can check this full post about namespace.
What is an inline namespace in modern C++?
C++11 standard and other standards above, allow the inline keyword in a namespace-definition. This is done in order to specify that members of the namespace can be defined and specialized as though they actually belong to the enclosing namespace.
In C++11 and the standards above, this new construction is called inline namespace and solves the problem where templates could only be specialized in their actual namespace, and not in the namespace they have been imported.
Here is the syntax for the inline namespace (since C++11)
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inline namespace name_of_ns { // definition and declarations } |
Since C++17, you can use optional sequence of any number of attributes as below,
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inline namespace <seq_attr> name_of_ns { // definition and declarations } |
If you want to extend the definition of an existing namespace (adding new classes, methods or templates, etc.), the lookup for the identifier is used in the namespace definition, it is used to resolve to a namespace name where the namespace is declared as a member of the enclosing namespace or of an inline namespace within an enclosing namespace.
Note that, any namespace member (class, method, or property) that is declared within a namespace definition can be defined or redeclared outside of it by using explicit qualification.
Is there a simple example of the inline namespace in modern C++?
Here is a simple example that uses inline namespace,
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namespace NS { inline namespace NSx { template <typename T> class A; } } |
Is there a simple example of the inline namespace in modern C++?
Here is a full example how we can use inline namespace with templates,
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namespace NS { inline namespace NSx { template <typename T> class A; } template <typename T> void f(T) { } } class Tx { }; namespace NS { template<> class A<Tx> { }; } int main() { NS::A<class Tx> a; f(a); } |
For more information on this feature, see Inline namespaces Proposal document.
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