On Wednesday, 15 December 2021 at 11:36:41 UTC, Manfred Nowak wrote:
> On Tuesday, 14 December 2021 at 08:28:01 UTC, WebFreak001 wrote:
[...]
> Alternatively, remove the template ()
from your struct Header
What is the semantic sense of a template having no parameters?
Although the documentation declares such a template to be syntactically correct, not a single example suggests a meaning.
For functions there is a use-case: they will not be compiled/included in the executable until they are actually instantiated once.
Additionally for functions that means for libraries they aren't usually compiled into the resulting library file, unless they are used in the library themself. (only really meaningful when you don't distribute the D source or when interoping with other languages)
For types similarly, if you have any template instantiations inside your templated type, they will not be instantiated or compiled, until that template is used at least once in code anywhere.
So:
struct Header()
{
Appender!string name;
}
unless Appender!string is used anywhere else in the code, that Appender struct will never be initiated, thus no member functions will be emitted or compile time will be used, until you instantiate the Header struct once.