How to print boost::any to a stream?

Question

I have a Map std::map, which comes from the boost::program_options package. Now I would like to print the content o

Answer 1

Rather than re-writing my class to use boost::spirit::hold_any, I created a way to stream boost::any, similar to what manifest suggested, but just in one place.

ostream& operator<<(ostream& _os, const boost::any& _any)
{
  // only define simple type conversions
  if (_any.type() == typeid(int))
    _os << boost::any_cast<int>(_any);

   /*any other types you use...*/
}

Rather cumbersome, but it allows me to stream a boost::any variable anywhere in my code.

How about being able to construct a boost::spirit::hold_any from a boost:any?

Answer 2

You could use boost::spirit::hold_any instead. It's defined here:

#include <boost/spirit/home/support/detail/hold_any.hpp>

and is fully compatible with boost::any. This class has two differences if compared to boost::any:

• it utilizes the small object optimization idiom and a couple of other optimization tricks, making spirit::hold_any smaller and faster than boost::any
• it has the streaming operators (operator<<() and operator>>()) defined, allowing to input and output a spirit::hold_any seemlessly.

The only limitation is that you can't input into an empty spirit::hold_any, but it needs to be holding a (possibly default constructed) instance of the type which is expected from the input.

Answer 3

Define some aux function to output to stream:

template<class T>
bool out_to_stream(std::ostream& os, const boost::any& any_value)
{
    try {
        T v = boost::any_cast<T>(any_value);
        os << v;
        return true;
    } catch(boost:: bad_any_cast& e) {
        return false;
    }
}

You can define a special formatting for some types

template<>
bool out_to_stream<std::string>(std::ostream& os, const boost::any& any_value)
{
    try {
        std::string v(std::move(boost::any_cast<std::string>(any_value)));
        os << "'" << v << "'";
        return true;
    } catch(boost:: bad_any_cast& e) {
        return false;
    }
}

or

template<>
bool out_to_stream<bool>(std::ostream& os, const boost::any& any_value)
{
    try {
        os << ((boost::any_cast<bool>(any_value))? "yes" : "no");
        return true;
    } catch(boost:: bad_any_cast& e) {
        return false;
    }
}

Then define an output operator for boost::any where you list all types you want to try to cast and output

std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& os, const boost::any& any_value)
{
    //list all types you want to try
    if(!out_to_stream<int>(os, any_value))
    if(!out_to_stream<double>(os, any_value))
    if(!out_to_stream<bool>(os, any_value))
    if(!out_to_stream<std::string>(os, any_value))
        os<<"{unknown}"; // all cast are failed, an unknown type of any
    return os;
}

And then for a value_type:

std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& os, const boost::program_options::variable_value& cmdline_val)
{
    if(cmdline_val.empty()){
        os << "<empty>";
    } else {
        os<<cmdline_val.value();
        if(cmdline_val.defaulted()) 
            os << "(default)";
    }
    return os;
}

Answer 4

A little late for this party, but anyone that may be interested can also use std::tuple and a std::for_each-like template that iterates over a tuple.

This is based on the answer from ingomueller.net in this thread.

I had a recent case where I created a property map (reading configuration values, mainly fundamental types, from an XML file and inserting them into an std::unordered_map, where the value type is of type any. For debugging purposes I wanted to be able to print the entire map with its keys and values along with the type of the value.

In that project I am not using Boost at all, I used my own any implementation, but its very similar to boost::any.

The insertion operator basically looks like this:

template <typename TChar>
inline std::basic_ostream<TChar>&
operator<< (std::basic_ostream<TChar>& os, const sl::common::any& v)
{
    // Types that we support with sl::common::any.
    std::tuple<
        float, double, bool, 
        int8_t, uint8_t, 
        int16_t, uint16_t,
        int32_t, uint32_t, 
        int64_t, uint64_t,
        std::wstring, const wchar_t*,
        StreamInserter::UnsupportedType> t;

    // Prepare ostream for printing a value of type any
    StreamInserter si(os, v);

    // Iterate over all types in tuple t. If the last type(UnsupportedType) is
    // reached, given v is unsupported.
    for_each(t, si);
    return os;
}

The for_each template looks like this (C++14):

template <typename Tuple, typename F, std::size_t ...Indices>
constexpr void for_each_impl(Tuple&& tuple, F&& f, std::index_sequence<Indices...>) {
    using swallow = int[];
    (void)swallow{1,
        (f(std::get<Indices>(std::forward<Tuple>(tuple))), void(), int{})...
    };
}

template <typename Tuple, typename F>
constexpr void for_each(Tuple&& tuple, F&& f) {
    constexpr std::size_t N = std::tuple_size<std::remove_reference_t<Tuple>>::value;
    for_each_impl(std::forward<Tuple>(tuple), std::forward<F>(f),
                  std::make_index_sequence<N>{});
}

With this just use the StreamInserter class or something similar shown in Ingos answer.

Hope this helps.

Answer 5

If you can change boost::any to another type, you can use Boost.TypeErasure. If you ever wanted to create a type that's like any, but only supporting types that support these particular operations at compile time, then this is just for you.

#include <boost/type_erasure/operators.hpp>
#include <boost/type_erasure/any.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/vector.hpp>
#include <random>
#include <iostream>

namespace te = boost::type_erasure;

typedef te::any<boost::mpl::vector<
    te::copy_constructible<>,
    te::destructible<>,
    te::ostreamable<>
>> streamable_any;

int main()
{
    streamable_any i(42);
    streamable_any d(23.5);
    std::mt19937 mt;
    streamable_any r(mt);
    std::cout << i << "\n" << d << "\n" << r << "\n";
}

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Answer 6

The list of type switches proposed in other answers can be improved with a loop over a type list using Boost MPL (see documentation of mpl::for_each and mpl::vector). The following code defines an operator<< for any boost::any that is given in the type list SupportedTypes and throws an exception otherwise.

#include <stdexcept>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>

#include <cstdint>

#include <boost/any.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/for_each.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/vector.hpp>

class StreamInserter
{
private:
    std::ostream& os_;
    const boost::any &v_;
    mutable bool has_printed_;

public:
    struct UnsupportedType {};

    StreamInserter(std::ostream& os, const boost::any &v)
        : os_(os), v_(v), has_printed_(false) {}

    template <typename T>
    void operator()(const T&) const
    {
        if (!has_printed_ && v_.type() == typeid(T))
        {
            os_ << boost::any_cast<T>(v_);
            has_printed_ = true;
        }
    }

    void operator()(const UnsupportedType&) const
    {
        if (!has_printed_)
            throw std::runtime_error("unsupported type");
    }
};

std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& os, const boost::any& v)
{
    typedef boost::mpl::vector<float, double, int8_t, uint8_t, int16_t, uint16_t,
            int32_t, uint32_t, int64_t, uint64_t, std::string, const char*,
            StreamInserter::UnsupportedType> SupportedTypes;
    StreamInserter si(os, v);
    boost::mpl::for_each<SupportedTypes>(si);
    return os;
}

int main(int, char**)
{
    std::cout << boost::any(42.0) << std::endl;
    std::cout << boost::any(42) << std::endl;
    std::cout << boost::any(42UL) << std::endl;
    std::cout << boost::any("42") << std::endl;
    std::cout << boost::any(std::string("42")) << std::endl;
    std::cout << boost::any(bool(42)) << std::endl; // throws exception
}