IFTI with constant args, is this already possible?

[Chad J]

Don Clugston wrote:
> Chad J wrote:
> 
>> So suppose I have a function template, one that is supposed to be 
>> instantiated via IFTI.  Then, the user supplies an argument that is 
>> constant (ex: foo(42,"cat")).  Is there any way that I can grab those 
>> constant arguments at compile time and use them to do compile time 
>> computation?  Even better, can I do it in variadic templates?
>>
>> I'm envisioning a situation like this:
>>
>> // the string-to-integer conversion is done at compile time
>> bignum bigAssInteger = "3420894398526094609987620490236001914309690234";
> 
> 
> There's no syntax sugar for this at present. (Though I've proposed it, 
> and there are indications that it will happen).
> But:
> 
> bigAssInteger = 
> toBigInt!("3420894398526094609987620490236001914309690234");
> 
> is currently possible.
> 
> Until we get early discard of templates, it's not really a good idea 
> right now because compilation is slow while the compiler generates an 
> enormous obj file full of junk.

Ah.  Thanks for the info.