Maximal Munch

Beginners in C++ template programming commonly end up writing following kind of code, which is not understood by compilers.

// Following gives compilation errors: std::vector<std::vector<int>> vecOfVecOfInt; // Corrected code – observe space betwen two consecutive “>”s. std::vector<std::vector<int> > vecOfVecOfInt;

Due to “maximal munch” rule of compiler, the token “>>” is read as right-shift operator. Therefore, in nested templates in above example “>>” is not parsed as desired by the programmer. As a solution, programmer need to put a space between two consecutive “>”s.