How can I add reflection to a C++ application?

Question

I\'d like to be able to introspect a C++ class for its name, contents (i.e. members and their types) etc. I\'m talking native C++ here, not managed C++, which has reflection

Answer 1

The two reflection-like solutions I know of from my C++ days are:

1) Use RTTI, which will provide a bootstrap for you to build your reflection-like behaviour, if you are able to get all your classes to derive from an 'object' base class. That class could provide some methods like GetMethod, GetBaseClass etc. As for how those methods work you will need to manually add some macros to decorate your types, which behind the scenes create metadata in the type to provide answers to GetMethods etc.

2) Another option, if you have access to the compiler objects is to use the DIA SDK. If I remember correctly this lets you open pdbs, which should contain metadata for your C++ types. It might be enough to do what you need. This page shows how you can get all base types of a class for example.

Both these solution are a bit ugly though! There is nothing like a bit of C++ to make you appreciate the luxuries of C#.

Good Luck.