joel falcou wrote:
and would be fairly useful, since it would allow constant-time visitation over std::type_info&. I'm afraid I don't fully understand what you're implying. Would you mind elaborate on this point ?
You could generate nested switches to identify what type std::type_info::name is within a finite set of possibilities. That allows identification to be done in constant-time. Imagine identifying whether type_info is "a" or "aa" for example. switch(type.name()[0] { case 'a': switch(type.name()[1]) { case 0: return f(*reinterpret_cast<a*>(ptr)); case 'a': switch(type.name()[2]) { case 0: return f(*reinterpret_cast<aa*>(ptr)); default: assert(0); } default: assert(0); } default: assert(0); } If you have the mangled names at compile-time, it is possible to generate that kind of automaton automatically.