Documentation

refl-cpp is a header-only library which provides compile-time reflection and introspection capabilities to C++. By encoding type metadata in the type system, refl-cpp allows you to process types and their fields and functions via constexpr and template metaprogramming.

Using refl-cpp in your project? I want to hear about it: contact me by email (see my profile), open an issue or add the #refl-cpp tag to your topics!

Have a question? Try asking in the Gitter channel.

Want to support refl-cpp? Consider making a donation.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
  • Examples
  • Motivation
  • Performance
• Integration
  • Requirements
  • CMake
  • Packages
• Documentation
• Testing
• Contributors
• License

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Introduction

refl-cpp aims to provide a generic reflection system that is flexible enough to suit your needs while maintaining a relatively small API surface.

Some nice things refl-cpp supports out-of-the-box:

• custom attributes - constexpr std::tuples associated with types and member descriptors
• proxy types - build generic proxy<T> types with the same members as T that can be used to wrap or extend functionality
• overloaded functions - you only declare your overloaded function once - refl-cpp knows how to work with it
• template types - use reflection with your containers and other templates; template types are perfectly-well supported
• template functions - refl-cpp also works with template functions, when the template parameters can be inferred from the function parameters

Examples

• Implement a simple serialization system - example-serialization.cpp - View in Compiler Explorer
  Implements an efficient generic serialization procedure from scratch

• Simple SQL database abstraction - example-dao.cpp - View in Compiler Explorer
  Implements a basic ORM system which can generate SQL statements at compile-time from model classes using custom properties

• Iterate base classes with bases<> - example-inheritance.cpp - View in Compiler Explorer
  Uses the built-in bases<> attribute to iterate over a type’s base classes

• Access reflection information at runtime - example-custom-rtti.cpp - View in Compiler Explorer
  Implements a basic runtime abstraction over refl-cpp which provides access to the reflection metadata at runtime via custom metadata objects

• XML-based GUI with strongly-types properties - example-binding.cpp - View in Compiler Explorer
  Implements a system for reading XML resources with refl-cpp, by building a custom runtime reflection layer on top of refl-cpp

• Implement a generic builder class factory - example-builders.cpp - View in Compiler Explorer
  Defines a generic builder<T> class, which implements the builder pattern for any type T.

• Convert fields to accessor methods - example-proxy.cpp - View in Compiler Explorer
  Uses the proxy feature to create a generic type value_proxy<T> which exposes all fields of T through accessors methods

• View an array of structs as a struct of arrays - example-struct-of-arrays.cpp - View in Compiler Explorer
  Uses the proxy feature to create a generic type struct_of_arrays<T> which stores all members of T in std::vector, but also has an T operator[](int) which constructs the individual objects on-demand

• Generate a struct of std::optional members - example-partials.cpp - View in Compiler Explorer
  Uses the proxy feature to create a generic type partial<T> which wraps all members of T in std::optional

Motivation

I started developing refl-cpp during my final year in high-school. I was supposed to be studying for exams, but I had just read the original Static Reflection (2017) proposal, and after realising that it wasn’t coming anytime soon, I decided that I had to try to cram as many of those features at possible into a compile-time library.

The library has grown and changed a lot since the early days, but even after several years, I still haven’t seen another reflection library that supports constexpr and template metaprogramming. With other libraries, you often have to walk a metadata structure at runtime, invoke function pointers, and use type-erasure. With refl-cpp, you process the type metadata at compile-time, via for_each loops, all the types are there, and the compiler can often inline everything and generate the same code that you would have hand-written.

Performance

All utility functions in refl-cpp are constexpr (except the ones in refl::runtime). Compilers will generally inline all loops and other constructs (when using -O2) and generate code that runs just as fast as if it was hand-written.

Thanks to some special compile-time optimisations, type metadata is generally not instantiated (no code-gen needs to happen) when the types themselves are not used in reflection. With 0.12.2, there have also been some major reductions in compilation time when using properties #60.

That being said, a word of caution: I have observed that after around the 250 reflected members mark, compilation times start to grow rapidly. If your codebase contains lots of huge classes (+250 functions), and you need to have all of them reflected with refl-cpp, this might be a deal breaker - benchmark before using.

Integration

Requirements

• Minimum language standard: C++17

Single-header library

To use refl-cpp as a single-header library, copy include/refl.hpp to your include directory.

CMake

You can also consume refl-cpp as a CMake dependecy (3.14+ required, thanks @friendlyanon).

Packages

• vcpkg install refl-cpp (thanks @Vennor)
• conan install refl-cpp
• AUR (thanks @otreblan)

Documentation

The online documentation is built with Doxygen. Run doxygen Doxyfile in docs/ to update it.

Testing

Run CMake with -Drefl-cpp_DEVELOPER_MODE=ON and make the refl-cpp-tests target.

Contributors

Run CMake with -Drefl-cpp_DEVELOPER_MODE=ON flag. You may also want to setup a custom preset for a more convenient developer experience (see this comment on #44).

• Issue tracker - refl-cpp/issues
• Source code - refl-cpp
• Contributors - refl-cpp/contributors.md

License

• MIT License (for more details, see the license file)