variadic_args

transparent argument to deal with multiple parameters to a function

struct variadic_args;

This class is meant to represent every single argument at its current index and beyond in a function list. It does not increment the argument count and is thus transparent. You can place it anywhere in the argument list, and it will represent all of the objects in a function call that come after it, whether they are listed explicitly or not.

variadic_args also has begin() and end() functions that return (almost) random-acess iterators. These return a proxy type that can be implicitly converted to a type you want, much like the table proxy type.

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#define SOL_ALL_SAFETIES_ON 1
#include <sol/sol.hpp>

#include <iostream>

int main() {
	std::cout << "=== variadic_args ===" << std::endl;

	sol::state lua;
	lua.open_libraries(sol::lib::base);

	// Function requires 2 arguments
	// rest can be variadic, but:
	// va will include everything after "a" argument,
	// which means "b" will be part of the varaidic_args list too
	// at position 0
	lua.set_function("v", [](int a, sol::variadic_args va, int /*b*/) {
		int r = 0;
		for (auto v : va) {
			int value = v; // get argument out (implicit conversion)
			               // can also do int v = v.as<int>();
			               // can also do int v = va.get<int>(i); with index i
			r += value;
		}
		// Only have to add a, b was included from variadic_args and beyond
		return r + a;
	});

	lua.script("x = v(25, 25)");
	lua.script("x2 = v(25, 25, 100, 50, 250, 150)");
	lua.script("x3 = v(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)");
	// will error: not enough arguments!
	// lua.script("x4 = v(1)");

	lua.script("assert(x == 50)");
	lua.script("assert(x2 == 600)");
	lua.script("assert(x3 == 21)");
	lua.script("print(x)");  // 50
	lua.script("print(x2)"); // 600
	lua.script("print(x3)"); // 21

	std::cout << std::endl;

	return 0;
}

You can also “save” arguments and the like later, by stuffing them into a std::vector<sol::object> or something similar that serializes them into the registry. Below is an example of saving all of the arguments provided by sol::variadic_args in a lambda capture variable called args.

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#define SOL_ALL_SAFETIES_ON 1
#include <sol/sol.hpp>

#include <iostream>
#include <functional>

int main() {

	std::cout << "=== variadic_args serialization/storage ===" << std::endl;

	sol::state lua;
	lua.open_libraries(sol::lib::base);
	
	std::function<void()> function_storage;

	auto store_routine = [&function_storage] (sol::function f, sol::variadic_args va) {
		function_storage = [f, args = std::vector<sol::object>(va.begin(), va.end())]() {
			f(sol::as_args(args));
		};
	};

	lua.set_function("store_routine", store_routine);
	
	lua.script(R"(
function a(name)
	print(name)
end
store_routine(a, "some name")
)");
	function_storage();

	lua.script(R"(
function b(number, text)
	print(number, "of", text)
end
store_routine(b, 20, "these apples")
)");
	function_storage();

	std::cout << std::endl;

	return 0;
}

Finally, note that you can use sol::variadic_args constructor to “offset”/”shift over” the arguments being viewed:

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#define SOL_ALL_SAFETIES_ON 1
#include <sol/sol.hpp>

#include <iostream>

int main () {
	
	std::cout << "=== variadic_args shifting constructor ===" << std::endl;

	sol::state lua;
	lua.open_libraries(sol::lib::base);

	lua.set_function("f", [](sol::variadic_args va) {
		int r = 0;
		sol::variadic_args shifted_va(va.lua_state(), 3);
		for (auto v : shifted_va) {
			int value = v;
			r += value;
		}
		return r;
	});
    
	lua.script("x = f(1, 2, 3, 4)");
	lua.script("x2 = f(8, 200, 3, 4)");
	lua.script("x3 = f(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)");
	
	lua.script("print(x)"); // 7
	lua.script("print(x2)"); // 7
	lua.script("print(x3)"); // 18

	std::cout << std::endl;

	return 0;
}