Use templated class without template

Question

I have class like this:

template<size_t MAX_SIZE>
struct Buffer{
   size_t size;
   char data[MAX_SIZE]; // this must be inside the struct itself
   constexpr static size_t max_size = MAX_SIZE;
};

I need to be able to pass this class to function that shouldn't use template, currently I am doing something like this:

void process(size_t &size, char *data, size_t max_size);

int main(){
   Buffer<1024> b;
   process(b.size, b.data, b.max_size);
}

Is there any better way to do the same? I can think about base class, and pass by reference, but it gets too complicated to be correct.

(This is not actual code, please do not pay attention if there are syntax errors.)

Answer 1

I would use a wrapper-method ...

template<size_t MAX_SIZE>
void process(Buffer<MAX_SIZE>& buffer)
{
    process(buffer.size, buffer.data, buffer.max_size);
}

... and then just call ...

int main()
{
    Buffer<1024> buffy;
    process(buffy);
    return 0;
}