Re: [boost] Library Proposal: Reflection for C++

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-02-01 09:36:26

Stefan Roiser <stefan.roiser_at_[hidden]> writes:

> On 31 Jan 2006, at 19:40, David Abrahams wrote:
>
>> Stefan Roiser <stefan.roiser_at_[hidden]> writes:
>>
>>> On 30 Jan 2006, at 17:08, Stefan Seefeld wrote:
>>>
>>> With interaction with objects I meant e.g. through the meta-level
>>> instantiate a class, get/set the data member values, call a function
>>> on that instance, retrieve the function's return value and so on. I
>>> may have missed that, but I couldn't find examples on the synopsis
>>> page for this functionality.
>>>
>>> Reflex code for this would look something like
>>>
>>> Type t = Type::ByName("foo");
>>> Object instance = t.Construct();
>>> Object ret_obj = instance.Invoke("myFunction");
>>
>> Very interesting.  Where do you get the object code for
>> foo::myFunction?  Or have you implemented a full C++ interpreter?
>
> foo::myFunction will be invoked through a stub function which is part  
> of the dictionary library for class foo. A dictionary library may be  
> dynamically loaded in a program.

Soooo.... what about templates?  Do you have to do something to
manually instantiate them?  Or do you do some kind of on-the-fly
compilation?

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com