has_interface trait

From:
pfultz2 <pfultz2@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Fri, 21 May 2010 16:09:27 CST
Message-ID:
<abfa2f6c-b5b8-4d17-99b2-09d746c83d4d@c7g2000vbc.googlegroups.com>
Now say I build an interface like this:
class IInterface
{
public:
     virtual void foo() = 0;
     virtual ~IInterface() {};
};

template<class T>
class Box : public virtual IInterface
{
     T * x;

public:
     Box()
     {
     }
     Box(T * x)
     {
         this->x = x;
     }

     virtual void foo()
     {
         x->foo();
     }
};

class Interface
{
private:
     IInterface * x;

public:
     template<class T>
     Interface(T * x)
     {
         this->x = new Box<T>(x);
     }

     IInterface & operator*()
     {
         return *x;
     }

     IInterface * operator-> ()
     {
         return x;
     }
};

Now say I have two classes like this:
class A
{
public:
     void foo()
     {
         printf("foo is called\n");
     }
};

class B
{
};

If I do this:
A a;
B b;
Interface interface1 = &a; //OK Compiles
Interface interface2 = &b;//Throws compile error because b does not
have a member named foo
So i would like to create a trait to query whether i can create an
interface from B or not, something like this:
bool aHas = has_interface<A>::value; //True
bool bHas = has_interface<B>::value; //False

Ultimately, I would like to use this for function overloading,
something like this:
template <class T>
typename enable_if<has_interface<T> >::type
process(cons T& x)
{
    //Optimize using this interface
}

template <class T>
void process(cons T& x)
{
    //The generic code when this interface doesnt exist
}

I though maybe i could use SFINAE to do this, but I cant figure out a
way to deduce this. Perhaps there is another way to do this. Basically
if it throws a compiler error on constructing the interface, i want it
to return a false value. Does any have any ideas?

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