Re: [boost] [variant] Why boost::get<Base>(derived) not supported?

Subject: Re: [boost] [variant] Why boost::get<Base>(derived) not supported?
From: Larry Evans (cppljevans_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-12-07 11:37:43

On 12/07/13 10:21, TONGARI J wrote:
> 2013/12/7 TONGARI J <tongari95_at_[hidden]>
>
>> 2013/12/7 Antony Polukhin <antoshkka_at_[hidden]>
>>
>>> 2013/12/7 TONGARI J <tongari95_at_[hidden]>
>>> <...>
>>>
>>>> Maybe we can promote this idea to something more general, like
>>>> 'variant_cast', not necessary have to be in base-derived relationship
>>> but
>>>> just something convertible.
>>>>
>>>> Does that make sense?
>>>>
>>>
>>> I'd prefer not mixing functionalities. We can make polymorphic_get<> work
>>> only for polymorphic casts (Base and Derived can be checked using type
>>> trait).
>>>
>>
>> I just looked into the code of get, and it also uses visitor, a bit
>> disappointed.
>> Since the current boost::get requires exact type match (except const),
>> there's only one viable way from the types, I thought it might do better
>> under the hood (i.e. single if-check instead of switch), but it didn't,
>> it's just a more restrictive visitor than what I shown in my sample code.
>>
>> And for type-checking, I think the user should use .which(), but I don't
>> know how many ones already did that with get, so it's a valid concern not
>> to break others' code...otherwise I'm inclined to make it the default
>> behavior of boost::get.
>>
>> I'm OK with polymorphic_get (except the long name, though), since that's
>> my use-case.
>> But variant_cast seems more attractive.
>> You can do variant_cast<Base&>(derived) or variant_cast<Base*>(&derived)
>> in that case, and variant_cast<Compatible>(v) for other conversion.
>> If you want to go further, you can ensure that at least one viable
>> conversion exists at compile time by some metaprogramming tricks.
>>
>
> Aside: Do we have something like unconditional_get that doesn't perform the
> runtime check?

Wouldn't reinterpret_cast do?

> Sometimes the type-safety can be ensured by my program logic.
>
>
> Thanks,
>
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