AReflection Library

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The author makes no representations about the suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.

This documentation complements the corresponding article in the C++ Users Journal.

Table of Contents

Prerequisites

Basic Usage

Accessors

AttributeTag by Index

ValueType by Index

ValueType by Tag

Member Number by Tag

Setter

Detecting whether a member variable is static

Hacked printf at compiletime

Accessing base classes through reflection

Determine whether a direct base is virtual

Diagnostic messages

Getting the count of reflected entities

Macros to define reflected entities

Reflection macros expanded

BEGIN_REFLECTION
DEF_REFLECTED_VIRTUAL_BASECLASS
DEF_REFLECTED_ATTRIBUTE
DEF_REFLECTED_STATIC_ATTRIBUTE
END_REFLECTION

Built in limitations (VC6)

Generative algorithms

base class traversion

flat member traversions

Example - an incentive system

deep member traversions

Deep traversions starting with a reflected object
Deep traversions starting with a reflected class
Deep traversions starting with two reflected objects
Graph traversion events
Example: generated comparison operators

userconfig.h Multithreading Pre and post operations for setter Miscellaneous

Implementation of base class traversion

Known Issues

Prerequisites

This library has been tested with Visual C++ 6.0 (Service Pack 6), Visual C++ 7.1 and GCC 3.2. For Visual C++ 6.0 you will need to adjust the compiler heap limit if the compiler tells you to do so (/Zm800 worked for my examples). Chances are that Visual C++ 7.0 can compile the 6.0 version of the code because Visual C++ 7.1 can do so (even the compiletime filtering of virtual base classes). The library uses some header from boost and some from Loki (tested against boost 1.30.2)

Last revised: September 13, 2004