Class metadata systems allow C++ applications to have a sizable fraction of the runtime reflection and introspection available in other high level languages, such as C#, Python, or Java. While C++ does not offer any true metadata system itself (excluding the nearly useless typeinfo/RTTI system, which is barely enough to handle dynamic_cast‘s needs), it’s certainly [...]
In Part I in the series on C++ Metadata, I explored how to build the basics of a runtime metadata system for C++ types, including custom classes, third-party libraries’ classes, and even C++ primitives. The article detailed building the low-level facilities to have metadata, but did not cover any real-world uses of metadata. Today’s article [...]