How to boost::any_cast into std::string

Question

I have this test snippet

#include <boost/any.hpp>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <bitset>
#include <string>

class wrapper {
  int value;
  char character;
  std::string str;

public:
  wrapper(int i, char c, std::string s) {
    value = i;
    character = c;
    str = s;
   }

  void get_data(){
    std::cout << "Value = " << value << std::endl;
    std::cout << "Character = " << character << std::endl;
    std::cout << "String= " << str << std::endl;
  }
};

int main(){

   std::vector<boost::any> container;
   container.push_back(10);
   container.push_back(1.4);
   container.push_back("Mayukh");
   container.push_back('A');
   container.push_back(std::bitset<16>(255) );
   wrapper wrap(20, 'M', "Alisha");
   container.push_back(wrap);

   std::cout << boost::any_cast<int>(container[0]) << std::endl;
   std::cout << boost::any_cast<double>(container[1]) << std::endl;
   std::cout << boost::any_cast<std::string>(container[2]);
   std::cout << boost::any_cast<char>(container[3]) << std::endl;
   std::cout << boost::any_cast<std::bitset<16>>(container[4]);
   auto p = boost::any_cast<wrapper>(container[5]);
   p.get_data();

return 0;

}

In this boost::any_cast gives bad_casting exception for std::string. It means for some reason it is not able to typecast boost::any into std::string. While other classes like bitset or my own user defined class is working. Can you please tell me why & a way out of this?

Answer 1

"Mayukh" is not a std::string, it is a const array of 7 characters {'M', 'a', 'y', 'u', 'k', 'h', '\0'}. In C++14, "Mayukh"s is a std::string after using namespace std::literals::string_literals;.

In C++11, std::string("Mayukh") is a std::string as well.

boost::any only supports converting back to the exact same type (well, up to some decay/const/etc). It does not support conversions between the types. See boost any documentation:

Discriminated types that contain values of different types but do not attempt conversion between them, i.e. 5 is held strictly as an int and is not implicitly convertible either to "5" or to 5.0. Their indifference to interpretation but awareness of type effectively makes them safe, generic containers of single values, with no scope for surprises from ambiguous conversions.

Augmenting any with extra smart conversions can be done. For example, a pseudo-any that takes an incoming type, and possibly auto-converts it (so it won't store shorts: it converts all signed integral types to int64_t and unsigned to uint64_t, it converts "hello" to std::string("hello"), etc) before storing it.

Answer 2

That's because "Mayukh" is not a std::string. It's a const char[7], which would decay into const char*:

boost::any a = "Mayukh";
std::cout << a.type().name() << '\n';  // prints PKc, pointer to const char
if (boost::any_cast<const char*>(&a)) {
    std::cout << "yay\n";              // prints yay
}

If you want to be able to use any_cast<std::string>, you'd need to put it in as a std::string:

container.push_back(std::string("Mayukh"));