c++ - Structured bindings width

Question

Is it possible to determine how many variable names should I to specify in square brackets using structured bindings syntax to match the number of data members of a plain right hand side struct?

I want to make a part of generic library, which uses structured bindings to decompose arbitrary classes into its constituents. At the moment there is no variadic version of structured bindings (and, I think, cannot be for current syntax proposed), but my first thought is to make a set of overloadings of some function decompose(), which performs decomposition of struct parameter into a set of its constituents. decompose() should be overloaded by number of parameter's (which is struct) data members. Currently constexpr if syntax also can be used to dispatch this. But how can I emulate something similar to sizeof... operator for above purposes? I can't use auto [a, b, c] syntax somewhere in SFINAE constructions, because it is a decomposition declaration and AFAIK any declaration cannot be used inside decltype, also I cannot use it for my purposes in the body of lambda functions because lambda functions cannot be used inside template arguments too.

Surely I want to have builtin operator (with syntax like sizeof[] S/sizeof[](S) for class S), but something like the following is also would be acceptable:

template< typename type, typename = void >
struct sizeof_struct
{

};

template< typename type >
struct sizeof_struct< type, std::void_t< decltype([] { auto && [p1] = std::declval< type >(); void(p1); }) > >
    : std::integral_constant< std::size_t, 1 >
{

};

template< typename type >
struct sizeof_struct< type, std::void_t< decltype([] { auto && [p1, p2] = std::declval< type >(); void(p1); void(p2);  }) > >
    : std::integral_constant< std::size_t, 2 >
{

};

... etc up to some reasonable arity

Maybe constexpr lambda will allow us to use them into template's arguments. What do you think?

Will it be possible with coming Concepts?

Answer 1

struct two_elements {
  int x;
  double y;
};

struct five_elements {
  std::string one;
  std::unique_ptr<int> two;
  int * three;
  char four;
  std::array<two_elements, 10> five;
};

struct anything {
  template<class T> operator T()const;
};

namespace details {
  template<class T, class Is, class=void>
  struct can_construct_with_N:std::false_type {};

  template<class T, std::size_t...Is>
  struct can_construct_with_N<T, std::index_sequence<Is...>, std::void_t< decltype(T{(void(Is),anything{})...}) >>:
  std::true_type
  {};
}
template<class T, std::size_t N>
using can_construct_with_N=details::can_construct_with_N<T, std::make_index_sequence<N>>;

namespace details {
  template<std::size_t Min, std::size_t Range, template<std::size_t N>class target>
  struct maximize:
    std::conditional_t<
      maximize<Min, Range/2, target>{} == (Min+Range/2)-1,
      maximize<Min+Range/2, (Range+1)/2, target>,
      maximize<Min, Range/2, target>
    >
  {};
  template<std::size_t Min, template<std::size_t N>class target>
  struct maximize<Min, 1, target>:
    std::conditional_t<
      target<Min>{},
      std::integral_constant<std::size_t,Min>,
      std::integral_constant<std::size_t,Min-1>
    >
  {};
  template<std::size_t Min, template<std::size_t N>class target>
  struct maximize<Min, 0, target>:
    std::integral_constant<std::size_t,Min-1>
  {};

  template<class T>
  struct construct_searcher {
    template<std::size_t N>
    using result = ::can_construct_with_N<T, N>;
  };
}

template<class T, std::size_t Cap=20>
using construct_airity = details::maximize< 0, Cap, details::construct_searcher<T>::template result >;

This does a binary search for the longest construction airity of T from 0 to 20. 20 is a constant, you can increase it as you will, at compile-time and memory cost.

Live example.

If the data in your struct cannot be constructed from an rvalue of its own type, it won't work in C++14, but I believe guanteed elision occurs in C++17 here (!)

Turning this into structured bindings requires more than a bit of a pile of manual code. But once you have, you should be able to ask questions like "what is the 3rd type of this struct" and the like.

If a struct can be decomposed into structured bindings without the tuple_size stuff being done, the airity of it determines how many variables it needs.

Unfortunetally std::tuple_size is not SFINAE friendly even in C++17. But, types that use the tuple_size part also need to ADL-enable std::get.

Create a namespace with a failure_tag get<std::size_t>(Ts const&...) that using std::get. Use that to detect if they have overridden get<0> on the type (!std::is_same< get_type<T,0>, failure_tag >{}), and if so go down the tuple_element path to determine airity. Stuff the resulting elements into a std::tuple of decltype(get<Is>(x)) and return it.

If that fails, use the above construct_airity, and use that to figure out how to use structured bindings on the type. I'd probably then send that off into a std::tie, for uniformity.

We now have tuple_it which takes anything structured-binding-like and converts it to a tuple of references or values. Now both paths have converged, and your generic code is easier!