Edit: I've found and written up a solution to my problem but I've left the question unanswered since my solution may still not be ideal.
I'm writing a small library designed to perform routines on maps of maps, but I'm having trouble designing a set of class templates that will let me get a pointer or reference (depending on the second_type of the map's value_type) to a map's mapped_type, regardless of the type of the map (e.g. std::map, boost::ptr_map).
To elaborate further, I have tabulated some input types and desired output types.
Case Input Type Output Type
A std::map<int, std::map<int, int> > std::map<int, int>&
B std::map<int, boost::ptr_map<int, int> > boost::ptr_map<int, int>&
C boost::ptr_map<int, std::map<int, int> > std::map<int, int>* const
D std::map<int, std::map<int, int> >* std::map<int, int>&
E std::map<int, boost::ptr_map<int, int> >* boost::ptr_map<int, int>&
F boost::ptr_map<int, std::map<int, int> >* std::map<int, int>* const
My code passes cases A, B, D and E, but fails on cases C and F. Here is what I have so far.
template <class Map>
struct map_utils
{
template <class K>
static typename
boost::remove_pointer<
typename Map::value_type
>::type::second_type&
get(Map& m, const K k)
{
return m[k];
}
template <class K>
static typename
boost::remove_pointer<
typename Map::value_type
>::type::second_type&
get(const Map& m, const K k)
{
return const_cast<Map&>(m)[k];
}
};
template <class Map>
struct map_utils<Map*>
{
template <class T>
static typename
boost::remove_pointer<
typename Map::value_type
>::type::second_type&
get(Map* m, const T t)
{
return (*m)[t];
}
template <class T>
static typename
boost::remove_pointer<
typename Map::value_type
>::type::second_type&
get(const Map* m, const T t)
{
return const_cast<Map*>(m)->operator[](t);
}
};
I'm trying to use boost::mpl to do this, and this is what I've cooked up so far, but I get the same error using both versions of the code.
The error.
error: invalid initialization of reference of type ‘std::map<int, double>* const&’ from expression of type ‘boost::ptr_container_detail::reversible_ptr_container<boost::ptr_container_detail::map_config<std::map<int, double>, std::map<int, void*, std::less<int>, std::allocator<std::pair<const int, void*> > >, true>, boost::heap_clone_allocator>::Ty_’
The modified specialization of the struct to deal with l-values that are not pointers to maps.
template <class K>
static typename
boost::mpl::if_<
boost::is_pointer<
typename boost::remove_pointer<
typename Map::value_type
>::type::second_type
>,
typename boost::remove_pointer<
typename boost::remove_const<
typename Map::value_type
>::type
>::type::second_type,
typename boost::remove_pointer<
typename Map::value_type
>::type::second_type&
>::type
get(Map& m, const K k)
{
return m[k];
}
C and F seems wrong, the mapped type isn't boost::ptr_map. Otherwise it sounds like you could just use full template specialization to decide whether it is an std::map or boost::ptr_map. Something like this:
template <class Map>
class Whatever;
template <class K, class V>
class Whatever<std::map<K, V> >
{
public:
typedef V& Type;
};
template <class K, class V>
class Whatever<std::map<K, V>* >
{
public:
typedef V& Type;
};
template <class K, class V>
class Whatever<boost::ptr_map<K, V> >
{
public:
typedef V* const Type;
};
template <class K, class V>
class Whatever<boost::ptr_map<K, V>* >
{
public:
typedef V* const Type;
};