Compile header-only template library into a shared library?

Question

We are in the process of designing a new C++ library and decided to go with a template-based approach along with some specific partial template specialisations for corner ca

Answer 1

Although there isn't a standard way to do it, it is usually possible with implementation specific techniques. I did it a long time ago with Borland's C++ Builder. The idea is to declare your templates to be exported from the shared library where they need to reside and import them where they are used. The way I did it was along these lines:

// A.h
#ifdef GENERATE
#  define DECL __declspec(dllexport)
#else
#  define DECL __declspec(dllimport)
#endif

template  class DECL C {
};

// A.cpp
#define GENERATE
#include "A.h"

template class DECL A;

Beware that I don't have access to the original code, so it may contain mistakes. This blog entry describes a very similar approach.

From your wording I suspect you're not on Windows, so you'll have to find out if and how this approach can be adopted with your compiler. I hope this is enough to put you in the right direction.