Retrieve innermost template type within the template itself

Question

is it possible to retrieve the innermost type of stacked templates of the same type from within the template? I'd like to retrieve the double type in the following example:

template<typename T>
struct is_a : std::false_type {};

template<typename T>
struct A
{
    using type = std::conditional_t<
        is_a<T>::value,
        T::type, // if it's an A, go deeper
        T>;      // if not, we're done
};
template<typename T>
struct is_a<A<T>> : std::true_type {};

int main()
{
    A<A<A<A<A<double>>>>>::type d = 3.0;
    return 0;
}

It was motivated by this question. Also, I found this post, indicating that it may have something do to with typename or template keyword placing, but I couldn't get it to work myself.

Answer 1

Unless I'm missing something I'd just partially specialize a template to make things easier

template<typename T>
struct A
{
    using type = T;
};

template<typename T>
struct A<A<T>>
{
    using type = typename A<T>::type;
};

int main()
{
    A<double>::type a = 5.0;
    A<A<double>>::type d = 3.0;
    A<A<A<double>>>::type c = 9.5;
    return 0;
}

Live sample

Answer 2

The usual trick to do it with your original approach is to defer evaluation:

template<class T> struct type_identity { using type = T; };

template<typename T>
struct A
{
    using type = typename std::conditional_t<
        is_a<T>::value,
        T,
        type_identity<T>>::type;
};