Curious Namespace Trick – Limited static polymorphism in C++

In plain words

Curious Namespace Trick is a C++ development technique that enables static polymorphism for functions and template types without using weak linking, CRTP, or traits. Developers can define multiple implementations of functions—such as platform-specific optimizations—that get selected at compile time through namespace conventions. The method allows common code to coexist with specialized implementations like ARM-accelerated versions while maintaining inline optimization, making it useful for cross-platform library development.

written from the facts on this page · September 2026

From the sources

This technique is an alternative to weak linking, CRTP, traits, etc. and allows limited static polymorphism for functions, template functions and template types. Lets use an example of cross-platform math library. It implements add() function and dot() function that calls add() : Now, we have some common add() and dot() code, and we also have a faster add() implementation for arm platform. We want to override common implementation and we want it to be nicely inlined too. Here are the steps: 1. In the common code we put '_' in the function definitions (but not in the function calls): 2. And after every function we include the following aliasing magic: 4. We build the code with platform…from github.com

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