Better way to say x == Foo::A || x == Foo::B || x == Foo::C || …?

Question

Let\'s say I have a bunch of well-known values, like this (but const char * is just an example, it could be more complicated):

const char *A = \"A\"         


        

Answer 1

(Edit: Turns out my original trick with a dummy type didn't work, I was misled by a lucky accident in my tests. Let's try that again...)

With a couple of helper templates you can write a general solution for this kind of situation:

template <typename T1> class Matcher {
public:
    explicit Matcher(T1 t1): val(t1), flag(false) {}
    template <typename T2> Matcher& operator()(T2 t2)
        { flag |= val == t2; return *this; }
    operator bool() const { return flag; }
private:
    T1 val;
    bool flag;
};
template <typename T1> Matcher<T1> match(T1 t1) { return Matcher<T1>(t1); }

// example...
string s = whatever;
if (match(s)("foo")("bar")("zap")) { do_something(); }

You can match against as many arguments as you want.

Answer 2

This can be done using variadic functions in c++03 as follows:

template <typename T>
bool MatchesOne( T _lhs, int _count, ...)
{
    va_list vl;
    va_start(vl,_count);
    for (int i=0;i<_count;i++)
    {
        int rhs=va_arg(vl,int);
        cout << "rhs = " << rhs << endl;
        if (_lhs == rhs) return true;
    }
    va_end(vl);
    return false;
}

int main(){
    float ff = 3.0;
    if (MatchesOne(ff, 5, 1, 2, 4, 5, 3))
    {
        cout << "Matches" << endl;
    }
    return 0;
}

If you know the types of all the expressions will have the same type as _lhs, you can change int rhs=va_arg(vl,int); to T rhs=va_arg(vl,T);

You can also do this elegantly using variadic templates in c++11:

template<typename T, typename T2>
bool one_equal(const T & _v1, const T2 & _v2)
{
    return _v1 == _v2;
}

template<typename T, typename T2, typename... Args>
bool one_equal(const T & _v1, const T2 & _v2, Args... args)
{
    return _v1 == _v2 || one_equal(_v1, args...);
}

...

if (one_equal(some_complicated_expression, v1, v2, v3, v4))
{

}

Okay one final hack-ish solution. It works, but makes the implementer of this function do a lot of repetitive work.

template <typename T1, typename T2>
bool match_one(T1 _v1, T2 _v2)
{
    return _v1 == _v2;
}

template <typename T1, typename T2, typename T3>
bool match_one(T1 _v1, T2 _v2, T3 _v3)
{
    return _v1 == _v3 || match_one(_v1, _v2);
}

template <typename T1, typename T2, typename T3, typename T4>
bool match_one(T1 _v1, T2 _v2, T3 _v3, T4 _v4)
{
    return _v1 == _v4 || match_one(_v1, _v2, _v3);
}

template <typename T1, typename T2, typename T3, typename T4, typename T5>
bool match_one(T1 _v1, T2 _v2, T3 _v3, T4 _v4, T5 _v5)
{
    return _v1 == _v5 || match_one(_v1, _v2, _v3, _v4);
}