Objective-D, reflective programming, dynamic typing

[Christopher Wright]

Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> Christopher Wright wrote:
>> Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>> void foo_templated(T...)(T args)
>>> {
>>>    Variant[args.length] dynatyped;
>>>    foreach (i, arg; args) dynatyped[i] = arg;
>>>    return foo(dynatyped);
>>> }
>>> void foo(Variant[] dynatyped...)
>>> {
>>>    ...
>>> }
>>>
>>> Andrei
>>
>> Okay, that's a reasonable solution, except that it doesn't work with 
>> interfaces. I already submitted a bugzilla entry that you should be 
>> able to create a Variant[] from D varargs, but that still requires 
>> writing a wrapper function.
> 
> A Variant[] is difficult to create from TypeInfo[] + void* varargs 
> because vital information has already been lost. That's why I'm saying 
> we better fix the situation by e.g. implementing opImplicitCast. Please, 
> let's leave void* alone.
> 
> Andrei

I don't find that this is the case. I implemented a Variant type that 
can be created from a void* and a typeinfo -- I had to, since tango's 
Variant doesn't support this (and, incidentally, because there is no way 
to get a representation of the data inside a tango Variant).

What information did you find that you needed but is not available in 
TypeInfo?