In message <001901c3fc77$64c7cf70$1d00a8c0@pdimov2>, Peter Dimov <pdimov@mmltd.net> writes
Kevlin Henney wrote:
I outlined in a previous email the intended syntax for use. To break this would be more than a little inconvenient, and certainly against the spirit of its design. Making the constructor 'explicit' would break the compilation of other code that is quite reasonable -- perhaps not yours, because you are following the style I outlined as an alternative in a previous response -- but it would still break it and for no good reason, eg
std::map<std::string, boost::any> table; ... table[key] = 0; // reasonable usage
This use case does not need an implicit constructor, just a templated operator=.
It was the spirit and sense of the expression rather than specifically the mechanism that I was referring to -- boost::any currently achieves this through a templated assignment operator. There was an implied (in)consistency that I should perhaps have stressed more clearly. Kevlin -- ____________________________________________________________ Kevlin Henney phone: +44 117 942 2990 mailto:kevlin@curbralan.com mobile: +44 7801 073 508 http://www.curbralan.com fax: +44 870 052 2289 Curbralan: Consultancy + Training + Development + Review ____________________________________________________________