Capture of typed references to generic objects

[TheZoc]

Hello,

I was running some tests with the sample provided, and found out I can't bind a reference to a generic object without a reinterpret_cast.

Example code:

rfl::Generic::Object test;
test["name"] = "John Smith";
test["email"] = "[email protected]";
test["age"] = 40;

If I try to add an address like this, it works, as expected:

test["address"] = rfl::Generic::Object;
test["address"]["street"] = "123 High Street"; 
test["address"]["city"] = "London";
test["address"]["zip"] = "SE1 1AA"

But I'd like to store a reference to "address" key. This is how I managed to make it work:

test["address"] = rfl::Generic::Object;
auto& address = reinterpret_cast<rfl::Generic::Object&>(test["address"]);
address["street"] = "123 High Street"; 
address["city"] = "London";
address["zip"] = "SE1 1AA"

Is there a way to avoid reinterpret_cast?
If not, would such feature request fit in your roadmap?

Thank you in advance!

[liuzicheng1987]

I will refer you to the documentation:

https://rfl.getml.com/generic/

You could make use of the fact that a Generic is really just a wrapper around a variant which you can retrieve using .variant() or .get():

auto& address = std::get_if<rfl::Object>(&test["address"].variant());

Just to be clear: If you know the keys of your fields at compile time, you would be much better off using structs. Not only is it more efficient, but it also helps you to avoid issues like this.