Boost C++ Application Development Cookbook - Second Edition

How to do it...

Detecting disabled RTTI, storing information about types, and comparing types at runtime are tricks that are widely used across Boost libraries.

1. To do this, we first need to include the following header:

#include <boost/config.hpp> 

2. Let's first look at the situation where RTTI is enabled and the C++11 std::type_index class is available:

#if !defined(BOOST_NO_RTTI) \    && !defined(BOOST_NO_CXX11_HDR_TYPEINDEX)#include <typeindex>using std::type_index;template <class T>type_index type_id() {    return typeid(T);}

3. Otherwise, we need to construct our own type_index class:

#else#include <cstring>#include <iosfwd> // std::basic_ostream#include <boost/current_function.hpp>struct type_index {    const char * name_; explicit type_index(const ...