In c++17, optional<T>
is an asymmetric type safe union of T
and nothingness (nullopt_t
). You can query if it has a T
with explicit operator bool
, and get the T
out with unary *
. The asymmetry means that optional “prefers” to be a T
, which is why unqualified operations (like *
or operator bool) refer to its T
ness.
In c++17 variant<A,B,C>
from paper n4218 is a symmetric type safe union of A
, B
and C
(etc). boost::variant
is always engaged, and std::variant
is almost always engaged (in order to preserve some exception guarantees, it can become valueless by exception if the types it store don’t have the right exception semantics).
As it is symmetric, there is no unique type for unary *
to return, and explicit operator bool
cannot say much of interest, so neither are supported.
Instead, you have to visit it, or query it for particular types.
In c++23 std::expected<T, E>
from paper n4015 is an asymmetric type-safe union. It is either a T
, or an E
. But like optional
, it “prefers” to be a T
; it has an explicit operator bool
that tells you if it is a T
, and unary *
gets the T
.
In a sense, expected<T,E>
is an optional<T>
, but when empty instead of wasting the space it stores an E
, which you can query.
Result<T,E>
seems close to expected<T,E>
(note that as of n4015, the order of parameters are swapped compared to Result
, but the published version did not).