The common C way to get a blob of generic data at runtime is to
use void pointers like so:
struct Structo {
int type;
void* data;
}
Then cast the void pointer to whatever data you needed based on
the type. I imagine D has a better mechanism for this sort of
thing, but after some searching I couldn't find what is
considered "best practice" for this application.
The obvious solution is to use objects and have polymorphism
solve the problem, but if you want to avoid as much memory
dereferencing as possible (say, to avoid cache misses), objects
seem a poor choice since they are always reference variables.
So what's considered the best alternative to void pointers in D
if you don't want to use objects? Make a tagged Union of all
possible datatypes in the struct? Have a Byte array and cast that
instead of a void pointer? Some sort of magic involving templates
or other metaprogramming mechanisms?
