I'm not talking so much about how the changes to `any` could or should be
implemented. I wanted to discuss the potential usefulness of the proposed
changes to `any`. For the record, I don't endorse the proposed changes to
`type_info` either and I think that the OP really wants the `any` changes,
that's what should be proposed and discussed.

On Thu, Apr 11, 2024 at 3:21 PM Gašper Ažman <gasper.azman_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> std::any type-erases the copy ctor and the dtor of the encapsulated type.
> It does that on assignment, and codegens that bit of the rtti needed to
> recover with get.
>
> all you need is some way to get a typelist of bases and you can codegen
> the code, on assignment. You *already* have to do that in a compilation
> unit where the full definition of the stored class is available. You can
> ask for it in a compilation unit where only a forward-decl is available,
> and that's alright, you'll be going through an extern template that you
> generated in the other compilation unit.
>
> It's really not difficult if you've ever done your own type-erasure.
>

So, basically you are proposing a table of upcast functions which is
generated at compile-time at the assignment site and associated with the
`any` instance. Then the cast function can look for the target type in the
table and execute the upcast function. (Or a single function with a
switch-case statement could be generated).

Yes, this will work. But it seems to me that these tables will duplicate
information that's already available in the runtime to support dynamic_cast
and can allow the cast to be implemented without changing either
`type_info` or `any`.

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