Something like Reflection possible in C++ ?

[frankgerlach]

I want to dynamically look up a (possibly virtual) method in c++ and
call it.
dlopen() and dlysm() provide me with addresses to the method.
Unfortunately, it seems that method pointers are NOT addresses, but
indices of a method table.
You might ask for what I need this ? The answer is that I want to build
an object request broker. Objects & methods which are exposed by this
broker are being invoked by network messages, which contain the object
ids (no problem to look them up from a table) and method names to be
called.

[frankgerlach]

Must be dlsym() !

[noel.yap]

There's no C++ reflection mechanism built into the language.

In the past, I've been able to use SWIG to produce a XML representation
of the class. The XML can then be parsed to generate code, say,
CppUnit registration code in my situation.

HTH,
Noel

[Branimir Maksimovic]

fr**********@gmail.com wrote:

I want to dynamically look up a (possibly virtual) method in c++ and
call it.
dlopen() and dlysm() provide me with addresses to the method.
Unfortunately, it seems that method pointers are NOT addresses, but
indices of a method table.
You might ask for what I need this ? The answer is that I want to build
an object request broker. Objects & methods which are exposed by this
broker are being invoked by network messages, which contain the object
ids (no problem to look them up from a table) and method names to be
called.

Make doMethod virtual function of base object.
class Base{
public:
virtual error_t doMethod(const string& method,
const argslist_t&, resultlist_t&)=0;
virtual ~Base(){}
};
Each derived class implements doMethod and calls what's appropitate
based on string method parameter,also implements stubs for arguments
and results.
Simple as it is. Make your argslist and resultlist to hold some type
like boost::any if needed.

Greetings, Bane.