Question

For a parametric class C, I want to get always the “primitive” type irrespective of pointer, const or reference modifiers.

template<typename __T>
class C
{
public:
    typedef std::some_magic_remove_all<__T>::type T;
}

int main()
{
    C<some_type>::type a;
}

For example, for some_type equal to:

• int&
• int**
• int*&
• int const &&
• int const * const
• and so on

I want a is always of type int. How can I achieve it?

Answer 1

template<class T> struct remove_all { typedef T type; };
template<class T> struct remove_all<T*> : remove_all<T> {};
template<class T> struct remove_all<T&> : remove_all<T> {};
template<class T> struct remove_all<T&&> : remove_all<T> {};
template<class T> struct remove_all<T const> : remove_all<T> {};
template<class T> struct remove_all<T volatile> : remove_all<T> {};
template<class T> struct remove_all<T const volatile> : remove_all<T> {};
//template<class T> struct remove_all<T[]> : remove_all<T> {};
//template<class T, int n> struct remove_all<T[n]> : remove_all<T> {};

I originally also stripped extents (arrays), but Johannes noticed that this causes ambiguities for const char[], and the question doesn’t mention them. If we also want to strip arrays (see also ideas mentioned in the comments), the following doesn’t complicate things too much:

#include <type_traits>
template<class U, class T = typename std::remove_cv<U>::type>
struct remove_all { typedef T type; };
template<class U, class T> struct remove_all<U,T*> : remove_all<T> {};
template<class U, class T> struct remove_all<U,T&> : remove_all<T> {};
template<class U, class T> struct remove_all<U,T&&> : remove_all<T> {};
template<class U, class T> struct remove_all<U,T[]> : remove_all<T> {};
template<class U, class T, int n> struct remove_all<U,T[n]> : remove_all<T> {};

or with a helper class but a single template parameter:

#include <type_traits>
template<class T> struct remove_all_impl { typedef T type; };
template<class T> using remove_all =
  remove_all_impl<typename std::remove_cv<T>::type>;
template<class T> struct remove_all_impl<T*> : remove_all<T> {};
template<class T> struct remove_all_impl<T&> : remove_all<T> {};
template<class T> struct remove_all_impl<T&&> : remove_all<T> {};
template<class T> struct remove_all_impl<T[]> : remove_all<T> {};
template<class T, int n> struct remove_all_impl<T[n]> : remove_all<T> {};

It is normal if all the variants start looking about the same 😉