Generally speaking - unless you are using templates or specialisations of templates - code that needs to deduce the type of a variable is normally badly broken. There are usually design alternatives.
Why don't you describe what you are trying to achieve, rather than how you have decided to achieve it? Odds are, someone will be able to offer a better approach (or point out why you're trying to achieve something silly, which is still a possibility).
It could be good or bad design, actually. It depends on what you're trying to optimize for, and what trade-offs you're making in the process. You're saving memory, but at certain costs:Originally Posted by baxy
1. Some increased CPU time to read from the data structure
2. Depending on data access patterns, potentially decreased cache performance, causing more expensive RAM reads
3. Greater complexity of code to write and maintain
So to know whether the tradeoff is worth it, you'd need to weigh exactly how much memory you're saving versus how much performance and maintainability you're sacrificing. For a huge memory gain, this might be worth it. For a trivial memory gain, it's a terrible design.
#3 would generally be my largest concern in a case like this - in general, if you are doing an "average" application, for every 1 hour spent on building your code base, you will spend 9 hours maintaining that code base. Every hour you spend on this is an hour you're not working on a different feature; is this what your 'customers' would feel is the best possible use of that time?
You ever try a pink golf ball, Wally? Why, the wind shear on a pink ball alone can take the head clean off a 90 pound midget at 300 yards.
