Function traits

From:
mlimber <mlimber@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Thu, 2 Jun 2011 14:37:38 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
<fd8d9d74-6e0f-4569-aa68-f244f6dd1fcf@l14g2000pro.googlegroups.com>
Hi, I'm interested in detecting traits for function pointer,
std::functions, functors (including lambdas), and std::bind
expressions. At present I only care about nullary (i.e., no
parameters) and unary (i.e., one parameter) functions, and I want to
use these traits to wrap them up in a std::function object of the
appropriate type. Here's what I came up with for function pointers and
std::functions:

 namespace nsDetail
 {
   class Dummy { Dummy(); };
 }

 template<class Fn> struct FnTraits;

 template<class R>
 struct FnTraits<R(*)()>
 {
   typedef nsDetail::Dummy ParamType;
   typedef R ReturnType;
   typedef R Signature();
   static const bool IsNullary = true;
 };

 template<class R, class P>
 struct FnTraits<R(*)(P)>
 {
   typedef P ParamType;
   typedef R ReturnType;
   typedef R Signature( P );
   static const bool IsNullary = false;
 };

 template<class R>
 struct FnTraits< std::function<R()> >
 {
   typedef nsDetail::Dummy ParamType;
   typedef R ReturnType;
   typedef R Signature();
   static const bool IsNullary = true;
 };

 template<class R, class P>
 struct FnTraits< std::function<R(P)> >
 {
   typedef P ParamType;
   typedef R ReturnType;
   typedef R Signature( P );
   static const bool IsNullary = false;
 };

Here's an example of how I use it -- I have some given functions that
accept std::function objects with two signatures:

 void DoSomething( std::function<void()> ) { /*...*/ }
 void DoSomething( std::function<void(int)> ) { /*...*/ }

I want to automate the conversion to std::function that is sometimes
required in the client code to resolve ambiguity. To do this, I'm
trying something like:

 template<class Fn>
 void Wrap( Fn fn )
 {
   // Wrap it up as a std::function and pass it in
   DoSomething( std::function<
     typename FnTraits<Fn>::Signature >( fn ) );
 }

 struct Functor
 {
   void operator()(int) const;
 };

 void Bar( int );

 void Foo()
 {
   DoSomething( std::function<void()>( []{} ) ); // Ok
   DoSomething( &Bar ); // ambiguous
   DoSomething( []{} ); // ambiguous
   DoSomething( Functor() ); // ambiguous
   DoSomething( std::bind( Bar, 42 ) ); // ambiguous

   Wrap( std::function<void()>( []{} ) ); // Ok
   Wrap( &Bar ); // Ok
   Wrap( []{} ); // error
   Wrap( Functor() ); // error
   Wrap( std::bind( Bar, 42 ) ); // error
 }

How can I get general functors and bind expressions in my FnTraits
class? It doesn't have to be bulletproof in detecting every case, as
the uses for it are well-defined within my program. There will only be
one operator() per functor.

TIA! --M

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