Specify the type of a vector with a string

Question

How do you specify a type with a string? I mean:

string s = "int";
Vector<s> vec;

And I want vec to be vector<int>. Is this possible?

I want to make a class where the user can type in a string and a vector with that type will be created.

You need some sort of variant data type. – David Heffernan Dec 20 '11 at 19:10 — David Heffernan, Dec 20 '11 at 19:10

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 20 '11 at 19:01

5

Not possible in C++, atleast not the way you want.

Templates are a compile time concept, while user input is a runtime concept. Completely different, not mixable.

To make that work, you need a dynamically typed language, which C++ is not. It's statically typed.

answered Dec 20 '11 at 19:01

Xeo

129,499
52
291
397

Ok, but I want to do this because i want to implement a multidimensional vector, http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8579207/hypercube-c-multidimensional-vectros . Any tips? – shizzle Dec 20 '11 at 21:11

Sergey Kalinichenko · Answer 2 · 2011-12-20T19:09:07.153

3

Is this possible?

This is not possible in C++. If using boost is an option, consider creating a vector of boost::variant objects instead: this way, your statically-typed vector would be prepared to accept elements of different types.

edited Dec 20 '11 at 19:09

answered Dec 20 '11 at 19:02

Sergey Kalinichenko

714,442
84
1,110
1,523

Specify the type of a vector with a string

2 Answers2