Feature: Support [variant] and [hasvariant] attributes

[oldnewthing]

Version

2.0.250303.1

Summary

The [variant] and [hasvariant] parameter attributes are hints that scalars should be auto-boxed. C++/WinRT does not take advantage of this right now.

Reproducible example

// Sample.idl
namespace Sample
{
 runtimeclass Thing
{
 static Accept([variant] Object value);
 }
}

// C++/WinRT without [variant] support
winrt::Thing::Accept(winrt::box_value(3));

// C++/WinRT with [variant] support
winrt::Thing::Accept(3);

Expected behavior

The value "3" to be accepted without boxing.

Actual behavior

Compiler error saying that 3 cannot be converted to IInspectable const&.

Additional comments

Sketch is to create a new parameter type winrt::param::variant.

Option 1: Simple but expensive.

struct winrt::param::variant
{
 template<typename T>
 variant(T&& arg) : value(box_value(arg)){}

 IInspectable value;
};

consume_Blah(winrt::param::variant arg);

This adds an AddRef/Release to the cost of an IInspectable parameter.

Option 2:

struct winrt::param::variant
{
 template<typename = std::enable_if_t<std::is_base_of_v<Windows::Foundation::IInspectable, std::decay_t<T>>>
 variant(T&& arg) : value(get_abi(arg)){}

 template<typename U>
 variant(U&& arg) : temp(box_value(arg)){value = get_abi(temp)}

 void* value;
 IInspectable temp;
};

consume_Blah(winrt::param::variant arg);

This avoids the AddRef/Release for inbound IInspectables, but still costs a null check when the variant destructs (assuming the compiler can't optimize it out).

Option 3: Overload the consumer to accept either IInspectable or param::boxed_value

struct winrt::param::boxed_value
{
 template<typename U>
 variant(U&& arg) : value(box_value(arg)){}

 IInspectable value;
};

consume_Blah(IInspectable arg);
consume_Blah(winrt::param::boxed_arg arg);

This avoids the overhead in the case where the caller passes an IInspectable, but it results in 2^N overload explosion.

Option 4: Use CTAD

template<bool boxed>
struct variant
{
 template<typename U>
 variant(U&& arg) : value(box_value(arg)){}
 IInspectable value;
};

template<>
struct variant<false>
{
 variant(Insp const& arg) : value(&arg){}
 const void* value;
};

template<typename T, typename = std::enable_if_t<!std::is_base_of_v<IInspectable, std::decay_t<T>>, int>>
variant(T&&) -> variant<true>
template<typename T, typename = std::enable_if_t<std::is_base_of_v<IInspectable, std::decay_t<T>>, void>>
variant(T&&) -> variant<false>

template<bool boxed1>
consume_Blah(winrt::param::varaint<boxed1> arg);

This still has 2^N explosion (since each variant parameter gets a different bool parameter for its variant) but you only emit the code once.

[sylveon]

Out of curiosity, does DependencyObject.SetValue have [variant]?

Boxing is currently relatively expensive, if the allocation is hidden it's probably worth looking at performance immprovements: #1416

[github-actions]

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