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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-10T19:07:20+00:00

In some situations it’s desirable to be able to type-erase a callable (e.g. function,

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In some situations it’s desirable to be able to type-erase a callable (e.g. function, function pointer, object instance with operator(), lambda, mem_fn), for instance in Using Boost adaptors with C++11 lambdas where a copy-assignable and default-constructible type is required.

std::function would be ideal, but there seems to be no way to automatically determine what signature to instantiate the class template std::function with. Is there an easy way to get the function signature of an arbitrary callable and/or wrap it in an appropriate std::function instantiation instance (i.e. a make_function function template)?

Specifically, I’m looking for one or other of

template<typename F> using get_signature = ...;
template<typename F> std::function<get_signature<F>> make_function(F &&f) { ... }

such that make_function([](int i) { return 0; }) returns a std::function<int(int)>. Obviously this wouldn’t be expected to work if an instance is callable with more than one signature (e.g. objects with more than one, template or default-parameter operator()s).

Boost is fine, although non-Boost solutions that aren’t excessively complex are preferred.

Edit: answering my own question.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I’ve come up with a fairly nasty non-library solution, using the fact that lambdas have operator():

    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;

template<typename F> using make_function_type = std::function<get_signature<F>>;
template<typename F> make_function_type<F> make_function(F &&f) {
    return make_function_type<F>(std::forward<F>(f)); }

    Any ideas where this can be simplified or improved? Any obvious bugs?

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