The effect of auto on compile time

c++, c++14

Solution

The `auto` keyword of C++11 is far less heavyweight than templates - its compile-time "overhead" is comparable to that of `sizeof`, which means it's close to zero.

Unlike templates where the compiler needs to perform sizeable amount of computation during the expansion (the template language in C++ is Turing-complete), the `auto` keyword requires the compiler to figure out the type of an expression, which is something the compiler knows anyway. In fact, it would have to figure out the type of the expression even without the `auto` keyword to decide if type conversions need to be applied.

Problem

The new auto keyword that we got in C++11 looks quite templat'ish to me so my question is - will it incur the same compile time bloat as templates do? The same question in regards to polymorphic lambdas: ``` [](auto val) {…} ``` this is essentially a template lambda - will this impact compile time or not?

Original source

Related problems