Question about Template Function Calls C++

Question

Hello,
I came across this code by a user called 'Paracoder' in a Sololearn challenge, where there is a template function, and in main it is called for arguments 1, 1.0, and 1.

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

template <class T>
void f(T)
{
static int i=1;
cout << ++i;
}

int main() {
f(1);
f(1.0);
f(1);
return 0;
}

The output of this code makes it seem like there are actually two different functions with two different i variables. Is this actually what is happening?

Answer 1

For different template parameters, a different function (or class/type-alias/variable) is created. So, in your code, 2 functions will be created - f<int>() and f<double>().

As f<int>() is not the same function as f<double>(), the static variables are also different.

This is actually a very good example to demonstrate how templates work.

Answer 2

That’s what I figured, thanks XXX