C++ – How to speed up g++ compile time (when using a lot of templates)

You can't forward declare "parts" of classes like that. Even if you could, you'd still need to instantiate the code somewhere so you could link against it. There are ways to handle it, you could make yourself a little library with instantiations of common containers (e.g. vector) and link them in. Then you'd only ever need to compile e.g. vector<int> once. To implement this you'll need to use something like -fno-implicit-templates, at least assuming you are sticking with g++ and explicitly instantiate the template in your lib with template class std::vector<int>

So, a real working example. Here I have 2 files, a.cpp and b.cpp

a.cpp:

#include <vector> // still need to know the interface
#include <cstdlib>

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
  std::vector<int>* vec = new std::vector<int>();
  vec->push_back(3);
  delete vec;
  return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

So now I can compile a.cpp with -fno-implicit-templates:

g++ -fno-implicit-templates -c a.cpp

This will give me a.o. If I then I try to link a.o I get:

g++ a.o
/usr/bin/ld: Undefined symbols:
std::vector<int, std::allocator<int> >::_M_insert_aux(__gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<int*, std::vector<int, std::allocator<int> > >, int const&)
void std::_Destroy<int*, std::allocator<int> >(int*, int*, std::allocator<int>)
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

No good. So we turn to b.cpp:

#include <vector>
template class std::vector<int>;
template void std::_Destroy(int*,int*, std::allocator<int>);
template void std::__uninitialized_fill_n_a(__gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<int*, std::vector<int, std::allocator<int> > >, unsigned long, int const&, std::allocator<int>);
template void std::__uninitialized_fill_n_a(int*, unsigned long, int const&, std::allocator<int>);
template void std::fill(__gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<int*, std::vector<int, std::allocator<int> > >, __gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<int*, std::vector<int, std::allocator<int> > >, int const&);
template __gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<int*, std::vector<int, std::allocator<int> > > std::fill_n(__gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<int*, std::vector<int, std::allocator<int> > >, unsigned long, int const&);
template int* std::fill_n(int*, unsigned long, int const&);
template void std::_Destroy(__gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<int*, std::vector<int, std::allocator<int> > >, __gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<int*, std::vector<int, std::allocator<int> > >, std::allocator<int>);

Now you're saying to yourself, where did all these extra template things come from? I see the template class std::vector<int> and that's fine, but what about the rest of it? Well the short answer is that, these things implementations are by necessity a little messy, and when you manually instantiate them, by extension some of this messiness leaks out. You're probably wondering how I even figured out what I needed to instantiate. Well I used the linker errors ;).

So now we compile b.cpp

g++ -fno-implicit-templates -c b.cpp

And we get b.o. Linking a.o and b.o we can get

g++ a.o b.o

Hooray, no linker errors.

So, to get into some details about your updated question, if this is a home brewed class it doesn't necessarily have to be this messy. For instance, you can separate the interface from the implementation, e.g. say we have c.h, c.cpp, in addition to a.cpp and b.cpp

c.h

template<typename T>
class MyExample {
  T m_t;
  MyExample(const T& t);
  T get();
  void set(const T& t);
};

c.cpp

template<typename T>
MyExample<T>::MyExample(const T& t) : m_t(t) {}
template<typename T>
T MyExample<T>::get() { return m_t; }
template<typename T>
void MyExample<T>::set(const T& t) { m_t = t; }

a.cpp

 #include "c.h" // only need interface
 #include <iostream>
 int main() {
   MyExample<int> x(10);
   std::cout << x.get() << std::endl;
   x.set( 9 );
   std::cout << x.get() << std::endl;
   return EXIT_SUCCESS;
 }

b.cpp, the "library":

 #include "c.h" // need interface
 #include "c.cpp" // need implementation to actually instantiate it
 template class MyExample<int>;

Now you compile b.cpp to b.o once. When a.cpp changes you just need to recompile that and link in b.o.

Google's cppclean (links to: download, documentation) can find several categories of C++ problems, and it can now find superfluous #includes.

There's also a Clang-based tool, include-what-you-use, that can do this. include-what-you-use can even suggest forward declarations (so you don't have to #include so much) and optionally clean up your #includes for you.

Current versions of Eclipse CDT also have this functionality built in: going under the Source menu and clicking Organize Includes will alphabetize your #include's, add any headers that Eclipse thinks you're using without directly including them, and comments out any headers that it doesn't think you need. This feature isn't 100% reliable, however.