Dynamic Object in C++-Toeb Blog

You can find my implementation at https://github.com/toeb/cppdynamic it is licensed under the MIT license. I’d be happy for feedback and or optimizations :) Dynamic object are useful, especially in rapid prototyping, non-performance critical situations, and situations in which data/functions -bags are needed (non schema specific data). Also when serializing and deserializing dynamic objects can be a very valuable asset.

Dynamic programming languages inherently support this. e.g.

var obj = {};
obj.a = 'asd';
obj.b = {};
obj.b.c = 3;
obj.d = function(i,j){ return i+j;}

C# Also supports dynamic objects utilizing the dynamic keyword:

dynamic obj = new ExpandoObject();
obj.a = "asd";
obj.b = new ExpandObject();
obj.b.c = 3;
obj.d = (int i, int j)=>i+j;

I tried as to stay close to c#’s dynamic objects when trying to implement them for c++. Of course I could not alter the language so I have to use the indexer operator operator[](const std::string &)

My syntax is as follows:

DynamicObject obj;
obj["a"] = "asd";
obj["b"] = DynamicObject();
obj["b"]["c"] = 3;
obj["d"] = [](int i, int j){return i+j;};

Here is a working example of what you can do:

#include <core.dynamic.h>
#include <assert.h>

int main(){
    {
      // dynamic object can be a fundamental type
      dynamic::DynamicObject uut = 33;
      assert(33 == (int)uut);

    }
  {
    // dynamic object can be a complex type
    dynamic::DynamicObject uut = std::string("hello");
    assert("hello" == (std::string)uut);
  }
  {
    // dynamic object can be reassigned
    dynamic::DynamicObject uut = 33;
    assert(33 == (int)uut);
    uut = std::string("hello");
    assert("hello" == (std::string)uut);
  }
  {
    //dynamic object can be a functor
    dynamic::DynamicObject uut = [](int i, int j){return i + j; };
    int result = uut(3, 4);
    assert(result == 7);
  }

  {
    // dynamic object can be an expando object
    dynamic::DynamicObject uut;
    uut["prop1"] = 33;
    uut["prop2"] = std::string("hello");
    uut["prop3"]["prop31"] = 5;
    uut["prop4"] = [](int i, int j){return i + j; };
    int prop1 = uut["prop1"];
    std::string prop2 = uut["prop2"];
    int prop31 = uut["prop3"]["prop31"];
    int result = uut["prop4"](5, 6);


    assert(prop1 == 33);
    assert(prop2 == "hello");
    assert(prop31 == 5);
    assert(result == 11);

  }

  {
    // you can create a custom dynamic object implementation:
    class MyImp : public dynamic::DynamicObjectImplementationBase{
    protected:
      virtual bool tryMemberGet(const get_member_context & context, result_type & result)override
      {
        if (context.name == "prop1"){
          result = 44;
          return true;
        }
        if (context.name == "prop2"){
          result = std::string("asd");
          return true;
        }

        return false;
      }
    };
    // initialization is still a bit complex 
    dynamic::DynamicObject uut = 
      std::dynamic_pointer_cast<dynamic::IDynamicObjectImplementation>(std::make_shared<MyImp>());
    int a = uut["prop1"];
    std::string b = uut["prop2"];

    assert(a == 44);
    assert(b == "asd");

  }



}

Caveats:

Functors with multiple overloads of operator() cannot be used as members or values (the is_callable<> and func_traits<> type traits would need to be specialized for the corresonding type.) This is especially sad, because no compiler independent version for std::bind return functors are usable. Method modifiers except nonconst and const are not implemented. Since c++ is statically typed working around it can be hard at times, however it is possible thanks to operator overloading. Especially operator(), operator[], operator T() are useful to allow dynamic objects.

Caveats:

FEATURED TAGS