This question is for the people who know both Haskell (or any other functional language that supports Higher-kinded Types) and C++...
Is it possible to model higher kinded types using C++ templates? If yes, then how?
EDIT :
From this presentation by Tony Morris:
Higher-order Polymorphism :
Languages such as Java and C# have
first-order polymorphism because they
allow us to abstract on types. e.g.
List<A>
can have a reverse
function
that works on any element type (the
A
).
More practical programming languages and type systems allow us to abstract on type constructors as well.
This feature is called higher-order (or higher-kinded) polymorphism.
Example :
Pseudo-Java with an invented notation for higher-order polymorphism
interface Transformer<X, Y> {
Y transform(X x);
}
interface Monad<M> { // M :: * -> *
<A> M<A> pure(A a);
<A, B> M<B> bind(Transformer<A, M<B>> t, M<A> a);
}
Template-template parameters?
template <template <typename> class m>
struct Monad {
template <typename a>
static m<a> mreturn(const a&);
template <typename a, typename b>
static m<b> mbind(const m<a>&, m<b>(*)(const a&));
};
template <typename a>
struct Maybe {
bool isNothing;
a value;
};
template <>
struct Monad<Maybe> {
template <typename a>
static Maybe<a> mreturn(const a& v) {
Maybe<a> x;
x.isNothing = false;
x.value = v;
return x;
}
template <typename a, typename b>
static Maybe<b> mbind(const Maybe<a>& action, Maybe<b>(*function)(const a&)) {
if (action.isNothing)
return action;
else
return function(action.value);
}
};