Variant Component¶

The variant component is a generic type-safe implementation of a discriminate union. It is equivalent to the Boost.Variant library, with several small exceptions.

Specifically, the variant does not allow for recursive variants, and makes no attempt to support them in any capacity. It is the author’s opinion that a variant should be stack allocated only, and not have to handle or deal with allocating memory.

Additionally, the variant has the ability to perform type-based pattern matching via lambdas. This allows a user to define the different code paths that are desired without requiring a user to implement a visitor functor separately. This means that a variant is capable of performing a type-based switch statement

The variant component resides in <core/variant.hpp>.

class bad_variant_get¶

Inherits:	std::logic_error

Used when the call to get the value out of a variant uses the incorrect index of the type list.

class variant<Ts>¶

The variant type represents a type-safe discriminate union. Much like the Boost.Variant, a variant is never in an uninitialized state. When default constructing a variant, the first type in the variant‘s typelist is initialized.

variant(T&& value)¶

Requires:	T be of a type from which any type in Ts is constructible.

Constructs the first type in Ts which can be constructed from T. The way in which this construction takes place is a first come first serve construction. The reason for this is simply due to how the constructor delegation occurs internally. As such, it is recommended that a variant contain types that cannot be constructed from each other.

variant(variant const& that)¶

Constructs a variant with the same type that is initialized in that. The object is initialized with the type’s copy constructor.

variant(variant&& that)¶

Constructs a variant with the same type that is initialized in that. The object is initialized with the type’s move constructor.

variant()¶

Constructs a variant by initializing the first type in its type list.

variant& operator=(variant const&)¶

variant& operator=(variant&&)

Assigns the contents of the other variant to *this. The object contained within *this is destructed first.

bool operator==(variant const& that) const noexcept¶

If both variant‘s which() is the same value, the values contained within are compared.

bool operator<(variant const& that) const noexcept¶

If both variant‘s which() are equal, the values contained are compared. Otherwise, the result of comparing which() is returned.

void swap(variant&)¶

Swaps the contents of both variants.

visit(Visitor&&, args) const¶

visit(Visitor&&, args)¶

Visiting a variant follows the following semantics. These semantics require that, when given a callable type Visitor, and variadic arguments Args..., that the return type of the visit will be a result of common_type_t<invoke_of_t<Visitor, Ts, Args...>...>.

If a common type cannot be found, then the visitation function will fail to compile properly. This means that a visitor must be capable of being invoked with all types in the variant‘s typelist and the arguments given. The visitor is executed with the INVOKE psuedo expression.

These same semantics are required for match().

Returns:	common_type_t<invoke_of_t<Visitor, Ts, Args...>...>

match(Visitors&&) const¶

match(Visitors&&)¶

Takes a variadic number of arguments that are all callable objects. These objects are combined into a single visitor and then executed on the variant.

auto get<N>() noexcept¶

Depending on the value of *this (reference, const reference, rvalue) the type of the value returned will be affected as well.

Noexcept:	false
Returns:	The element located at N in the type list.
Throws:	bad_variant_get if N != which().

std::type_info const& type() const noexcept¶

Returns:	The typeid of the value currently managed by the variant.

std::uint32_t which() const noexcept¶

Returns:	index into type list of which type is currently managed by the variant.

bool empty() const noexcept¶

Provided for compatibility with Boost.Variant, and to keep in line with the other ‘object containers’ contained within this library.

Returns:	false