C++ wrap a generic std::tr1::function with another function

Question

How can I wrap a generic C++ std::tr1::function object with another function such that this function executes first followed by the wrapped function? I've tried:

#include <tr1/functional>

template <typename T>
int wrapped(const std::tr1::function<int(T)>& f, T t)
{
  return f(t);
}

template <typename T>
std::tr1::function<int(T)> wrap(const std::tr1::function<int(T)>& f)
{
  return std::tr1::bind(&wrapped, f, std::tr1::placeholders::_1);
}

int foo(int i) { return i; }

int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
  std::tr1::function<int(int)> f =
    wrap(std::tr1::bind(&foo, std::tr1::placeholders::_1));
  f(1);
  return 0;
}

But this returns with the compiler error (g++):

wrap.cpp: In function ‘int main(int, char**)’:
wrap.cpp:22: error: no matching function for call to ‘wrap(std::tr1::_Bind<int (* ()(std::tr1::_Placeholder<1>))(int)>)’

Answer 1

I see two problems in your code. First, wrapped is not a function, it is a function template, and as such it doesn't exist in the generated program. You can't take an address of a function template. You should instead specify an instantiation of this template to take address of:

template <typename T>
std::tr1::function<int(T)> wrap(const std::tr1::function<int(T)>& f)
{
  return std::tr1::bind(&wrapped<T>, f, std::tr1::placeholders::_1);
}

Second (and thats what your compiler is trying to tell you) you must explicitly specify a template parameter when calling wrap. The compiler can't deduce tha parameter from supplied arguments.

std::tr1::function<int(int)> f =
  wrap<int>(std::tr1::bind(&foo, std::tr1::placeholders::_1));

I don't really understand how std::bind or tr1::bind works on the inside. But I understand that the returned type is very different from a simple function pointer, and as such doesn't allow the compiler to clearly read the type for template parameter deduction. So in these situations you need to specify the type explicitly.