Need to know about good C++ Reflection API (For RuntimeType Identification -RTTI and runtime calling)

I need a good C++ Reflection API (like a Microsoft API) which enables me to 开发者_JAVA技巧determine the types (class, struct, enum, int, float, double, etc) identified at runtime, declare them, and call methods on those types at runtime.

Regards,

Usman

If you are trying to get to a plugin-type architecture, the POCO Library at http://pocoproject.org has some pieces that might get you part of the way. It will allow you to load a .dll or .so at runtime and create the classes contained in it. But the calling code will still need a header file which describes an interface (or abstract base class) to be able to get the signatures of the methods.

C++ is an incredibly complex language. "Reflective" APIs weren't part of the language design and so basically it isn't there.

If you want general purpose "reflection" and "metaprogramming", you can get that by stepping outside the language and using a program transformation system (PTS). Such a tool for your purpose has to parse C++ (in more than one compilation unit at a time), provide you with access to all the language structures, let you reflect, that is, determine the type (or other properties) of any construct (e.g., variable, expression or other syntax construction) and enable you to apply arbitrary code modifications. Obviously, this won't happen at "runtime" (although I suppose you could shell out to such machinery if you insisted).

Our DMS Software Reengineering Toolkit with its C++ Front End has a proven track record at analyzing and transformating very large sets of C++ code. See the technical papers for some detailed use cases. I don't think the other tools at the Wikipedia site handle C++, although they have the right mindset.

Although it isn't really a PTS (no source-to-source transformations), Clang might work, too. I'm not sure (since I don't use it all), how it can collect type information and use it to drive transformations to the source code. Its clearly very good at using such information to do LLVM code generation.