Obtain the vtable of a class without an object

struct many_vtable {
  void(*dtor)(void*);
  void(*print)(void const*,std::ostream&);
};
template<class T>struct tag_t{};
template<class T>constexpr tag_t<T> tag = {};

template<class T>
many_vtable const* make_many_vtable(tag_t<T>){
  static const many_vtable retval = {
    // dtor
    [](void* p){
      reinterpret_cast<T*>(p)->~T();
    },
    // print
    [](void const*p, std::ostream& os){
      os<<*reinterpret_cast<T const*>(p);
    }
  };
  return &retval;
}
struct many {
  many_vtable const* vtable=nullptr;
  std::aligned_storage_t<100, alignof(double)> buff;
  void clear(){if(vtable) vtable->dtor(&buff);vtable=nullptr;}
  ~many(){ clear(); }
  many()=default;
  many(many const&)=delete; // not yet supported
  many& operator=(many const&)=delete; // not yet supported

  explicit operator bool()const{return vtable!=nullptr;}

  template<class T,class...Args>
  void emplace(Args&&...args){
    static_assert(alignof(T) <= alignof(double), "not enough alignment");
    static_assert(sizeof(T) <= 100, "not enough size");
    clear();
    ::new((void*)&buff) T(std::forward<Args>(args)...);
    vtable=make_many_vtable(tag<T>);
  }
  friend std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& os, many const&m){
    if(!m.vtable) return os;
    m.vtable->print(&m.buff, os);
    return os;
  }
};

This is a manual vtable design. It can store anything up to 100 bytes whose alignment is less than a double that can be printed to a stream.

'Erasing' down to more (or different) operations is easy. For example, being able to copy/move to another many.

It does not violate the standard, and it has similar overhead to the linked example.

many m;
m.emplace<int>(3);
std::cout << m << '\n';
m.emplace<double>(3.14);
std::cout << m << '\n';

live example.

This is manual vtables, because we are basically reimplementing the vtable concept manually.