Can boost variant safely accept pointers to classes that are forward declared without any unintended implications such as using them with visitors?
class A;
class B;
typedef boost::variant<A*, B*> Variant;
class A {
public:
A() {}
};
class B {
public:
B() {}
};
I'd suggest using the builtin recursive element support for this exact purpose. It makes the (de)allocation(s) automatic and exception safe.
Here's a complete demo where B
actually recursively contains a vector<Variant>
(which is 90% of the use-cases for forward-declared element types):
#include <boost/variant.hpp>
#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>
struct A;
struct B;
typedef boost::variant<A, B> Variant;
struct A {
int solution = 42;
};
struct B {
std::string answer = "Thanks for all the fish!";
std::vector<Variant> other { A{1}, A{2}, B{"Three", {}}, A{4} };
};
struct Visitor {
std::string indent = " - ";
void operator()(Variant const& v) const {
boost::apply_visitor(Visitor{" " + indent}, v);
}
void operator()(A const& a) const { std::cout << indent << a.solution << "\n"; };
void operator()(B const& b) const {
std::cout << indent << std::quoted(b.answer) << "\n";
for (auto& v : b.other) {
operator()(v);
}
};
};
int main()
{
Variant v;
v = A{};
boost::apply_visitor(Visitor{}, v);
v = B{};
boost::apply_visitor(Visitor{}, v);
}
Prints
- 42
- "Thanks for all the fish!"
- 1
- 2
- "Three"
- 4