Code:
----------
import std.conv;
import std.variant;
struct MyValue {
int impl;
auto opCast(T : MyOtherValue)() {
return MyOtherValue(impl);
}
}
struct MyOtherValue {
int impl;
}
void main() {
auto mv = MyValue(123);
MyOtherValue mov2 = mv.to!MyOtherValue; // OK
Variant v = mv;
MyOtherValue mov = v.coerce!MyOtherValue; // NG
}
----------
Compiler output:
----------
/usr/src/d/phobos/std/variant.d(844): Error: static assert: "unsupported type for coercion"
----------
Given the current implementation of Variant, I'm not sure how possible this is, but it would be *very* nice if there were some way of saying, given an object of type Variant, "I don't care what the actual underlying type is, just convert it to T using std.conv.to or throw an exception if that's not possible". Currently, you have to know that the stored type is MyValue, then you can extract a MyValue and convert it to MyOtherValue. However, in generic code, it's often not possible (or desirable) to have to know what the original type is; sometimes the code just knows it wants some desired type T, and Variant should either convert to T somehow (preferably with std.conv.to, since that's the standard conversion tool in D), or throw an exception if the underlying types are incompatible.
Related: issue #12997.
Comment #1 by robert.schadek — 2024-12-01T16:32:21Z