Say you have a template that requires a large number of arguments. ie, more than three. This is not a very clear or concise interface and not self-documenting. Any thing with a large number of arguments suffers from the same problem. You can give default arguments but if you just want to provide one argument that happens to be after one or more other default arguments, you have to provide those as well and you have to know the defaults if you want to keep the default behaviour bar the one you want to modify. My solution to provide named template arguments is this:

template<typename NumType,
         NumType TLow = std::numeric_limits<NumType>::lowest(),
         NumType TMin = std::numeric_limits<NumType>::min(),
         NumType TMax = std::numeric_limits<NumType>::max(),
         NumType TDef = 0,
         NumType TInv = -1,
         typename Specials = TestList<NumType>,
         typename Excludes = TestList<NumType> >
struct NumWrapper
{
    static constexpr NumType low = TLow;
    static constexpr NumType min = TMin;
    static constexpr NumType max = TMax;
    static constexpr NumType def = TDef;
    static constexpr NumType inv = TInv;
    typedef Specials inc_type;
    typedef Excludes exc_type;

    template<NumType Special>
    struct Min
    {
        typedef NumWrapper<NumType, low, Special, max, def, inv, Specials, Excludes> type;
    };

    template<NumType Special>
    struct Max
    {
        typedef NumWrapper<NumType, low, min, Special, def, inv, Specials, Excludes> type;
    };

    template<NumType Special>
    struct Low
    {
        typedef NumWrapper<NumType, Special, min, max, def, inv, Specials, Excludes> type;
    };

    template<NumType Special>
    struct Def
    {
        typedef NumWrapper<NumType, low, min, max, Special, inv, Specials, Excludes> type;
    };

    template<NumType Special>
    struct Inv
    {
        typedef NumWrapper<NumType, low, min, max, def, Special, Specials, Excludes> type;
    };

    template<NumType... List>
    struct Inc
    {
        typedef NumWrapper<NumType, low, min, max, def, inv, TestList<NumType, List...>, exc_type> type;
    };

    template<NumType... List>
    struct Exc
    {
        typedef NumWrapper<NumType, low, min, max, def, inv, inc_type, TestList<NumType, List...> > type;
    };

    NumType val = def;
    NumWrapper() = default;
    NumWrapper(NumType _v) : val(_v) {}

    operator NumType ()
    {
        return val;
    }
};

This class is something I needed to quickly create data ranges really easily in order to generate values for testing. I may want to provide a different minimum that is different from the underlying type but use the std::numeric_limits for the other values, or I may want to provide extra values that have a special meaning within the context of its use.

The named argument effect is achieved by declaring nested classes in the NumWrapper classes that have an internal typedef that creates a new NumWrapper type from the enclosing template instantiation. The internal typedef only instantiates on the template argument they “name”, and use the rest of the values from the enclosing template instantiation. The use of default template arguments in the main definition, and the inheritance of those arguments as you continue the typedef chain means the user does not then have to provide those values if they don’t want to.

Take special note that, as the library developer, you will of course need to know the order of the template arguments. You just have to make it so that the user of your library does not have to know the order.

Declaring a new integer type becomes as simple as this:

typedef NumWrapper<short>::Max<9999>::type::Def<1>::type::Min<-10>::type::Inc<2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19>::type MyIntegralType;

It also makes it easy to figure out what the expected range and values of this integral type should be. You can even automate its specialization for std::numeric_limits:

namespace std
{
    template<typename NumType, NumType TLow, NumType TMin, NumType TMax, NumType TDef, NumType TInv, typename Specials, typename Excludes>
    struct numeric_limits<NumWrapper<NumType, TLow, TMin, TMax, TDef, TInv, Specials, Excludes> > : numeric_limits<NumType>
    {
        static constexpr bool is_specialized = true;
        static constexpr NumType min()
        {
            return NumWrapper<NumType, TLow, TMin, TMax, TDef, TInv, Specials, Excludes>::min;
        }

        static constexpr NumType max()
        {
            return NumWrapper<NumType, TLow, TMin, TMax, TDef, TInv, Specials, Excludes>::max;
        }

        static constexpr NumType lowest()
        {
            return NumWrapper<NumType, TLow, TMin, TMax, TDef, TInv, Specials, Excludes>::low;
        }
    };

    template<typename NumType, NumType TLow, NumType TMin, NumType TMax, NumType TDef, NumType TInv, typename Specials, typename Excludes>
    struct is_arithmetic<NumWrapper<NumType, TLow, TMin, TMax, TDef, TInv, Specials, Excludes>> : is_arithmetic<NumType> {};
}

This way, the user will never have to specialize std::numeric_limits ever again.

One final note, you can use preprocessor macros to make this even more easier to write:

#define NUMTYPE(type) NumWrapper<type>
#define TLOW(low) ::Low<low>::type
#define TMIN(min) ::Min<min>::type
#define TMAX(max) ::Max<max>::type
#define TDEF(def) ::Def<def>::type
#define TINV(inv) ::Inv<inv>::type
#define TINC(...) ::Inc<__VA_ARGS__>::type
#define TEXC(...) ::Exc<__VA_ARGS__>::type

typedef NUMTYPE(short)TMAX(9999)TDEF(1)TMIN(-10)TINC(2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19) MyIntegralType;