Which version of gcc are you using? I believe that user defined literals are supported from version 4.7

http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/user_literal

It may be possible to parse the PRETTY_FUNCTION macro to get the text you require. However I havent tried this and am on a train at the moment so cannot test it myself.

It may be possible to parse the PRETTY_FUNCTION macro to get the text you require.

gcc's __PRETTY_FUNCTION__ isn't a macro, it's a static const local variable.

Which version of gcc are you using? I believe that user defined literals are supported from version 4.7

User-defined literals are in 4.7, but MinGW (the Windows port of GCC that I use) is still at 4.6.

If I was using 4.7, how would that be done?

Something like this?
template<class Arg>
constexpr const char *operator"" TypeName( const char * /* Ignore */)
{
return typeid(Arg).name();
}


"Name of type is: " ## "dummyText"TypeName<Arg>

I'm happy with my current error message ([size=2][color=#008000]""[color=#C0C0C0] [color=#000000]#newTypeName[color=#C0C0C0] [color=#008000]"[color=#C0C0C0] [color=#008000]is[color=#C0C0C0] [color=#008000]not[color=#C0C0C0] [color=#008000]implicitely[color=#C0C0C0] [color=#008000]convertible[color=#C0C0C0] [color=#008000]with[color=#C0C0C0] [color=#008000]"[color=#C0C0C0] [color=#000000]#parentType[color=#C0C0C0] [color=#008000]"-derived[color=#C0C0C0] [color=#008000]classes[color=#C0C0C0] [color=#008000]or[color=#C0C0C0] [color=#008000]strong[color=#C0C0C0] [color=#008000]"[color=#C0C0C0] [color=#000000]#parentType[color=#C0C0C0] [color=#008000]"[color=#C0C0C0] [color=#008000][size=2]typedefs"), but am still curious about the answer to the original problem (compile-time template arg name).

If I was using 4.7, how would that be done?

Something like this?

template <class Arg>
constexpr const char *operator"" TypeName( const char * /* Ignore */)
{
return typeid(Arg).name();
}

"Name of type is: " ## "dummyText"TypeName

Unfortunately this won't work...

The declaration of a literal operator template shall have an empty parameterdeclaration-clause, and its template-parameter-list shall have a single template parameter that is a non-type template parameter pack with element type char.
[/quote]
http://www.open-std..../2008/n2765.pdf

Even if there was some way of getting the type information into the user defined literal I just tried static_assert with a user defined literal in gcc 4.7 and the error message is empty, which is a shame.

Proabably the best (and most portable) solution is to try and word your error message appropriately.

gcc's __PRETTY_FUNCTION__ isn't a macro, it's a static const local variable.

That makes sense, since there's no way for the preprocessor to know what the function name will be.