--- title: The Compile-Time Trick Most Developers Miss #programming... description: An introduction to C++ static reflection, explaining how the reflection operator (sometimes called the 'cat ears' operator) works at compile time. Reflecting... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-compile-time-trick-most-developers-miss-programming-tutorial-hju3stsev twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The Compile-Time Trick Most Developers Miss #programming #tutorial | daily.dev og:description: An introduction to C++ static reflection, explaining how the reflection operator (sometimes called the 'cat ears' operator) works at compile time. Reflecting... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-compile-time-trick-most-developers-miss-programming-tutorial-hju3stsev og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/HJu3stsev.png og:image:alt: The Compile-Time Trick Most Developers Miss #programming #tutorial og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The Compile-Time Trick Most Developers Miss #programming #tutorial **[C\+\+Online](https://daily.dev/sources/cpponline)** · 1 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary An introduction to C++ static reflection, explaining how the reflection operator (sometimes called the 'cat ears' operator) works at compile time. Reflecting an object or type yields a std::meta::info opaque object, from which you can query metadata like struct data members by calling functions on it. Reflection is limited to things visible to the compiler at the point of reflection. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Flavours of Reflection — Semantics](https://daily.dev/posts/flavours-of-reflection-semantics-b70oldr8z) · C\+\+ · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [C\+\+ Reflection: a Universal Printer](https://daily.dev/posts/c-reflection-a-universal-printer-pmscycfou) · C\+\+ · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [C\+\+26 Reflection gives us universal template parameters](https://daily.dev/posts/c-26-reflection-gives-us-universal-template-parameters-rzixrpk5v) · Arthur O'Dwyer · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#c++](https://daily.dev/tags/c++) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-compile-time-trick-most-developers-miss-programming-tutorial-hju3stsev) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"The Compile-Time Trick Most Developers Miss #programming #tutorial","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-compile-time-trick-most-developers-miss-programming-tutorial-hju3stsev","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-compile-time-trick-most-developers-miss-programming-tutorial-hju3stsev"},"datePublished":"2026-07-05T07:25:45.765Z","dateModified":"2026-07-05T07:26:41.726Z","description":"An introduction to C++ static reflection, explaining how the reflection operator (sometimes called the 'cat ears' operator) works at compile time. 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