This is an unofficial snapshot of the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC22 WG21 Core Issues List revision 116a. See http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/ for the official list.

2024-12-19

605. Linkage of explicit specializations

[Voted into WP at August, 2010 meeting.]

Given

    template <class T> static T f(T   t) { ... }
    template <>             int f(int t) { ... }

what is the linkage of f(int)?

Section Clause 13 [temp] paragraph 4 says,

Entities generated from a template with internal linkage are distinct from all entities generated in other translation units.

But is the explicit specialization “generated from” the primary template? Does it inherit the local linkage? If so, where do I find a reference saying so explicitly?

James Widman: Data points: EDG 3.8 inherits, GCC 4.0 does not.

Mike Miller: There's a pretty strong presumption that the linkage of an explicit specialization cannot be different from that of its primary template, given that storage class specifiers cannot appear in an explicit specialization (9.2.2 [dcl.stc] paragraph 1).

Notes from the April, 2007 meeting:

The CWG agreed that the linkage of an explicit specialization must be that of the template. Gabriel Dos Reis will investigate the reason for the different behavior of g++.

Proposed resolution (March, 2010):

Change Clause 13 [temp] paragraph 4 as follows:

...Entities generated from Specializations (explicit or implicit) of a template with that has internal linkage are distinct from all entities generated specializations in other translation units...