Hyman Rosen pointed twice that explicit specialization of a nested
(member) class template must be *outside* its host class, while
partial specialization of a member class template can be defined
either *inside* or *outside* the host class.

Example:

class A
{
    template <class T> class B {};
    template <> class B<int> {}; // illegal
};

class C
{
    template <class T> class D {};
    template <class T> class D<T*> {}; // groovy
};


Is there a rationale for this asymmetry? If not, does it have to do
with backwards compatibility and the fact that partial specialization
is newer than explicit specialization? Thanks.


Andrei

P.S. I was careful this time. In my previous posts, I repeatedly
misspelled "asymmetry" as "assymetry". I apologize for any confusion
that I might have created.




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