[boost] boost::variant - apply_visitor not accepting variant by const reference

From: Szalacsi Sandor (szalacsi_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-02-02 18:59:52

Hello,

I tried to post this one to the boost.users newsgroup, but I did not 
succeed:

"
Hello,

According to the docs and the source, boost::apply_visitor has two 
overloads now:
template<typename Visitor, typename Variant>
   typename Visitor::result_type
   apply_visitor(Visitor & visitor, Variant & operand);
template<typename Visitor, typename Variant>
   typename Visitor::result_type
   apply_visitor(const Visitor & visitor, Variant & operand);

None of them is capable of taking a Variant instance by const reference, 
only by reference.

One can certainly find workarounds for it, but that is not very simple, 
see for example an attempt trying to remove constness using const_cast:
typedef boost::variant<int, std::string> MyVariant;
boost::apply_visitor(MyVisitor(), const_cast<MyVariant&>(MyVariant());
This does not work either due to rvalue/lvalue issues.
One can write some wrapper functions of course, but it is inconvenient.

My questions are: is this the product of intentional design? If it is, 
what are the reasons for not allowing to pass variant by const 
references? If it is not, what should be the most elegant way to visit 
variants through const references?

Sincerely

Sandor Szalacsi

"

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