C++11 Tagged Tuple

I'm not aware of any existing class that does this, but it's fairly easy to throw something together using a std::tuple and an indexing typelist:

#include <tuple>
#include <iostream>

template<typename... Ts> struct typelist {
  template<typename T> using prepend = typelist<T, Ts...>;
};

template<typename T, typename... Ts> struct index;
template<typename T, typename... Ts> struct index<T, T, Ts...>:
  std::integral_constant<int, 0> {};
template<typename T, typename U, typename... Ts> struct index<T, U, Ts...>:
  std::integral_constant<int, index<T, Ts...>::value + 1> {};

template<int n, typename... Ts> struct nth_impl;
template<typename T, typename... Ts> struct nth_impl<0, T, Ts...> {
  using type = T; };
template<int n, typename T, typename... Ts> struct nth_impl<n, T, Ts...> {
  using type = typename nth_impl<n - 1, Ts...>::type; };
template<int n, typename... Ts> using nth = typename nth_impl<n, Ts...>::type;

template<int n, int m, typename... Ts> struct extract_impl;
template<int n, int m, typename T, typename... Ts>
struct extract_impl<n, m, T, Ts...>: extract_impl<n, m - 1, Ts...> {};
template<int n, typename T, typename... Ts>
struct extract_impl<n, 0, T, Ts...> { using types = typename
  extract_impl<n, n - 1, Ts...>::types::template prepend<T>; };
template<int n, int m> struct extract_impl<n, m> {
  using types = typelist<>; };
template<int n, int m, typename... Ts> using extract = typename
  extract_impl<n, m, Ts...>::types;

template<typename S, typename T> struct tt_impl;
template<typename... Ss, typename... Ts>
struct tt_impl<typelist<Ss...>, typelist<Ts...>>:
  public std::tuple<Ts...> {
  template<typename... Args> tt_impl(Args &&...args):
    std::tuple<Ts...>(std::forward<Args>(args)...) {}
  template<typename S> nth<index<S, Ss...>::value, Ts...> get() {
    return std::get<index<S, Ss...>::value>(*this); }
};
template<typename... Ts> struct tagged_tuple:
  tt_impl<extract<2, 0, Ts...>, extract<2, 1, Ts...>> {
  template<typename... Args> tagged_tuple(Args &&...args):
    tt_impl<extract<2, 0, Ts...>, extract<2, 1, Ts...>>(
      std::forward<Args>(args)...) {}
};

struct name {};
struct age {};
struct email {};

tagged_tuple<name, std::string, age, int, email, std::string> get_record() {
  return { "Bob", 32, "[email protected]"};
}

int main() {
  std::cout << "Age: " << get_record().get<age>() << std::endl;
}

You'll probably want to write const and rvalue get accessors on top of the existing one.

C++ does not have a struct type that can be iteratable like a tuple; it's either/or.

The closest you can get to that is through Boost.Fusion's struct adapter. This allows you to use a struct as a Fusion sequence. Of course, this also uses a series of macros, and it requires you to list the struct's members explicitly in the order you want to iterate over them. In the header (assuming you want to iterate over the struct in many translation units).

Actually my example is probably a bit unrealistic to implement. How about this?

You could implement something like that, but those identifiers need to actually be types or variables or something.

I have my own implementation to show off, wich can allow you not to declare the attributes on top of the file. A version with declared attributes exists too, but there is no need to define them, declaration is sufficient.

It is pure STL, of course, and do not use the preprocessor.

Example:

#include <named_tuples/tuple.hpp>
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>

namespace {
unsigned constexpr operator "" _h(const char* c,size_t) { return named_tuples::const_hash(c); }
template <unsigned Id> using at = named_tuples::attribute_init_int_placeholder<Id>;
using named_tuples::make_tuple;
}

int main() {
  auto test = make_tuple( 
      at<"nom"_h>() = std::string("Roger")
      , at<"age"_h>() = 47
      , at<"taille"_h>() = 1.92
      , at<"liste"_h>() = std::vector<int>({1,2,3})
      );

  std::cout 
    << test.at<"nom"_h>() << "\n"
    << test.at<"age"_h>() << "\n"
    << test.at<"taille"_h>() << "\n"
    << test.at<"liste"_h>().size() << std::endl;

  test.at<"nom"_h>() = "Marcel";
  ++test.get<1>();

  std::cout 
    << test.get<0>() << "\n"
    << test.get<1>() << "\n"
    << test.get<2>() << "\n"
    << test.get<3>().size() << std::endl;

  return 0;
}

Find the complete source here https://github.com/duckie/named_tuple. Feel free to read, it is quite simple.