Check if a variable type is iterable?

Solution 1:

You may create a trait for that:

namespace detail
{
    // To allow ADL with custom begin/end
    using std::begin;
    using std::end;

    template <typename T>
    auto is_iterable_impl(int)
    -> decltype (
        begin(std::declval<T&>()) != end(std::declval<T&>()), // begin/end and operator !=
        void(), // Handle evil operator ,
        ++std::declval<decltype(begin(std::declval<T&>()))&>(), // operator ++
        void(*begin(std::declval<T&>())), // operator*
        std::true_type{});

    template <typename T>
    std::false_type is_iterable_impl(...);

}

template <typename T>
using is_iterable = decltype(detail::is_iterable_impl<T>(0));

Live example.

Solution 2:

cpprefence has an example answering your question. It is using SFINAE, here is a slightly modified version of that example (in case the content of that link gets changed over time):

template <typename T, typename = void>
struct is_iterable : std::false_type {};

// this gets used only when we can call std::begin() and std::end() on that type
template <typename T>
struct is_iterable<T, std::void_t<decltype(std::begin(std::declval<T>())),
                                  decltype(std::end(std::declval<T>()))
                                 >
                  > : std::true_type {};

// Here is a helper:
template <typename T>
constexpr bool is_iterable_v = is_iterable<T>::value;

Now, this is how it can be used

std::cout << std::boolalpha;
std::cout << is_iterable_v<std::vector<double>> << '\n';
std::cout << is_iterable_v<std::map<int, double>> << '\n';
std::cout << is_iterable_v<double> << '\n';
struct A;
std::cout << is_iterable_v<A> << '\n';

Output:

true
true
false
false

Having said that, all it checks is, the declaration of begin() const and end() const, so accordingly, even following is verified as an iterable:

struct Container
{
  void begin() const;
  void end() const;
};

std::cout << is_iterable_v<Container> << '\n'; // prints true

You can see these pieces together here