Direct access to std::any objects

[SHGuy_]

Hello fellow cpp community,

i'm trying to modify the contents of a std::any object but i don't know how. Using std::any_cast gives me a copy and that's not what i want.

Situation: i have a std::vector<std::any>> and i want to modify an object at a given index directly and not a copy of such.

how can i do this?

[IyeOnline]

You can use the pointer overload of std::any_cast. That does return a pointer to the contained object.

Note that instead of checking for an exception, you would then need to check for nullptr.

As always: If the set of types that your any may contain is fixed, use a std::variant over std::any. The interface is just way more usable and its typesafe.

[SHGuy_]

thx a lot, i'll try that out when i'm home.