"type-switch" construct in C++11

Question

All the time, I find myself doing something like this:

Animal *animal = ...
if (Cat *cat = dynamic_cast<Cat *>(animal)) {
    ...
}
else if (Dog *dog = dynamic_cast<Dog *>(animal)) {
    ...
}
else { assert(false); }

Once I see closures in C++11, I wonder, is something like this possible?

Animal *animal = ...
typecase(animal,
    [](Cat *cat) {
        ...
    },
    [](Dog *dog) {
        ...
    });

Implementing typecase should have been easy, but I keep running into a problem where it can't figure out the function's argument, so it can't know what to try to dynamic_cast to, because it's hard to deduce lambdas' parameters. Took a few days of searching google and SO, but finally figured it out, so I'll share my answer below.

Answer 1

Thanks to an answer from ecatmur at https://stackoverflow.com/a/13359520 I was able to extract the signature from the lambda. The full solution looks like this:

// Begin ecatmur's code
template<typename T> struct remove_class { };
template<typename C, typename R, typename... A>
struct remove_class<R(C::*)(A...)> { using type = R(A...); };
template<typename C, typename R, typename... A>
struct remove_class<R(C::*)(A...) const> { using type = R(A...); };
template<typename C, typename R, typename... A>
struct remove_class<R(C::*)(A...) volatile> { using type = R(A...); };
template<typename C, typename R, typename... A>
struct remove_class<R(C::*)(A...) const volatile> { using type = R(A...); };

template<typename T>
struct get_signature_impl { using type = typename remove_class<
    decltype(&std::remove_reference<T>::type::operator())>::type; };
template<typename R, typename... A>
struct get_signature_impl<R(A...)> { using type = R(A...); };
template<typename R, typename... A>
struct get_signature_impl<R(&)(A...)> { using type = R(A...); };
template<typename R, typename... A>
struct get_signature_impl<R(*)(A...)> { using type = R(A...); };
template<typename T> using get_signature = typename get_signature_impl<T>::type;
// End ecatmur's code

// Begin typecase code
template<typename Base, typename FirstSubclass, typename... RestOfSubclasses>
void typecase(
        Base *base,
        FirstSubclass &&first,
        RestOfSubclasses &&... rest) {

    using Signature = get_signature<FirstSubclass>;
    using Function = std::function<Signature>;

    if (typecaseHelper(base, (Function)first)) {
        return;
    }
    else {
        typecase(base, rest...);
    }
}
template<typename Base>
void typecase(Base *) {
    assert(false);
}
template<typename Base, typename T>
bool typecaseHelper(Base *base, std::function<void(T *)> func) {
    if (T *first = dynamic_cast<T *>(base)) {
        func(first);
        return true;
    }
    else {
        return false;
    }
}
// End typecase code

and an example usage is here:

class MyBaseClass {
public:
    virtual ~MyBaseClass() { }
};
class MyDerivedA : public MyBaseClass { };
class MyDerivedB : public MyBaseClass { };


int main() {
    MyBaseClass *basePtr = new MyDerivedB();

    typecase(basePtr,
        [](MyDerivedA *a) {
            std::cout << "is type A!" << std::endl;
        },
        [](MyDerivedB *b) {
            std::cout << "is type B!" << std::endl;
        });

    return 0;
}

If anyone has any improvements, please tell me!