C++ metaprogramming with templates versus inlining

Question

Is it worth to write code like the following to copy array elements:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;


template<int START, int N> 
struct Repeat { 
  static void copy (int * x, int * y) {
   x[START+N-1] = y[START+N-1];
   Repeat<START, N-1>::copy(x,y);
  }
};

template<int START> 
struct Repeat<START, 0> { 
  static void copy (int * x, int * y) {
   x[START] = y[START];
  }
};



int main () {


   int a[10];
   int b[10];

             // initialize
   for (int i=0; i<=9; i++) {
     b[i] = 113 + i;
     a[i] = 0;
   }

            // do the copy (starting at 2, 4 elements)
  Repeat<2,4>::copy(a,b);

             // show
   for (int i=0; i<=9; i++) {
   cout << a[i] << endl;
   }

} // () 

or is it better to use a inlined function?

A first drawback is that you can't use variables in the template.

Answer 1

That's not better. First of all, it's not really compile time, since you make function calls here. If you are lucky, the compiler will inline these and end up with a loop you could have written yourself with much less amount of code (or just by using std::copy).