Deserialize a component from a custom format

[tomwjerry]

I want to do something like this:
https://github.com/SanderMertens/flecs/blob/master/examples/cpp/reflection/basics_deserialize/src/main.cpp

However, I was thinking, what if I could add a function to the component instead, that does this push, set_float, pop stuff. Or something even more dynamic, since we are declaring the component with .member<float>("x"), shouldn't this be able to be retrieved somewhere? Like a function telling us that "here is X and it is a float".

Edit, found something, however I feel it is a little roundabout way to do this:

auto a = c.lookup("a");
const flecs::Member *m = a.try_get<flecs::Member>();
// m->type now has the variable type, problem is, we need to know it is called "a"

It would be nice to have something iterable to retrieve all the members.

[SanderMertens]

The key thing about deserializing though is that the input string (or blob, ...) tells you what you're deserializing, not the type. For example, if you see a { in the input string, you call ecs_meta_push. If you see a comma, you call ecs_meta_next etc.

If you were to iterate all members of a type in order, you'd require that members always appear in the same order in the input data, which would be brittle.

That said, if you are serializing, it makes a lot of sense to iterate members. See this example for how you can do that:
https://github.com/SanderMertens/flecs/blob/master/examples/cpp/reflection/custom_serializer/src/main.cpp