Can you make a C++ generic function?

Question

Is it possible to create a generic C++ function foo?

foo(Object bar, Object fred)
{
    //code
}

in which that if the two objects

Answer 1

Most probably you need to use templates as other people suggest:

template <class T>
return_type func(T const& l, T const& r)
{
   ...
}

Because you normally want compilation to fail when the operation implemented by a generic function does not make sense for particular types, so you would either use conditional definition (in the below example is_arithmetic):

#include <boost/utility/enable_if.hpp>
#include <boost/type_traits/is_arithmetic.hpp>

template <class T>
typename boost::enable_if<boost::is_arithmetic<T>, return_type>::type
func(T const& l, T const& r)
{
    ...
}

or static assertion in the code to yield the same result:

#include <boost/type_traits/is_arithmetic.hpp>

template <class T>
return_type func(T const& l, T const& r)
{
    static_assert(boost::is_arithmetic<T>::type::value, "incompatible types");
    ...
}