On Tue, 23 Feb 2021 at 19:56, Peter Dimov via Boost
This is a reminder that my library Describe
https://github.com/pdimov/describe https://pdimov.github.io/describe/doc/html/describe.html
needs a review manager.
Describe is a library that allows programmers to annotate their classes (and enumerations) in order to enable simple reflection. It provides a very important fundament on which other libraries can build upon to provide automatic support for user-defined types.
For example, given an annotated type, Boost.JSON can automatically provide conversions from/to json::value. Boost.ContainerHash can automatically provide a hash function hash_value for the type. Boost.Serialization can automatically provide serialization support. See the examples:
https://pdimov.github.io/describe/doc/html/describe.html#example_to_json https://pdimov.github.io/describe/doc/html/describe.html#example_from_json
https://pdimov.github.io/describe/doc/html/describe.html#example_serializati...
Other JSON (and serialization) libraries already offer a similar mechanism, e.g. https://github.com/nlohmann/json#arbitrary-types-conversions. But since each library has its own private way to annotate types, a programmer needs to repeat the type annotations for every library he wants his type to be known to. This is unnecessary and undesirable, and a standard mechanism to describe types avoids it.
Describe is intended to be this standard mechanism, and I believe that we need it in Boost sooner rather than later.
I can identify a number of cases where this library would be useful for me. The easy implementation of serialisation being a major one. I'd be happy to propose myself to manage the review.
Thanks in advance to whoever volunteers.
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