C++26 Reflections adventures and compile time UML
The first thing I do every time I need to learn a new codebase is to start drawing the UML diagram of its classes, and usually give up soon after I started. The process of doing it manually is certainly useful, but now with reflections I figure it would be fun to try generate it instead. With C++26 reflections[1] the general consensus is that the magnitude of language change is comparable to what happened with C++11. After my little experiment with it, I would cautiously agree. So how does one go about creating a (Plant)UML diagram at compile time? With something like this. With the spoilers out of the way let’s dig in the details. P2996[1] introduces a couple of operators, namely lift ^^ and splice [: :]. The first one “lifts” a type or variable into a “meta” space, and…
