On 7/26/2012, 5:45 PM, Chapman, Alec wrote:
The problem is that there are significant differences between references and values. This is okay for Boost.Function, because Boost.Function doesn't expose ant mutating operations. However, in the more general case this behavior is too error prone. Just think about what would happen if we allowed using boost::ref for any_iterator. Some Algorithms assume that they can make copies of iterators and that these iterators are independent of each other.
These are exactly the sorts of algorithms I have in mind. What I am suggesting is that the original object is held by reference, but when a copy is made the underlying object is copied as well. With your method I do not see a way to capture by reference and then pass that object to an algorithm that does not have special logic to handle Boost.TypeErasure.
Perhaps the false parallel with Boost.Function would be confusing. I have also done it by overloading the constructor with a dummy parameter:
int i = 0; any<requirements> x(i, type_erasure::as_reference); // x holds a pointer to i any<requirements> y(x); // y allocates a new integer and initializes it with i ++y; // i is still 0
Hi Steven, Have you had a chance to consider this? Please let me know if something I'm suggesting isn't clear or if there is already a way to achieve this with your library. Alec