Instead of using unions to store various semantic values tt(bisonc++) could
also use a polymorphic base class to handle semantic values of various
types. Using a polymorphic base class is covered in this section. The
described method is a direct result of a suggestion initially brought forward
by Dallas A. Clement in September 2007.

One may wonder why tt(union)s are still used by Bisonc++, as bf(C++) offers
inherently superior ways to handle multiple semantic types: a poymorphic base
class and a series of derived classes implementing the alternative data types.

On the other hand, a polymorphic base class also seems to imply a lot of
additional work: classes must be derived from a base class, virtual members
must be declared and overridden in derived classes, and the base class must be
aware of the relevant interfaces of all derived classes. All this does more to
hinder than to promote the construction of reusable software. So, how to
proceed? It turns out that the required effort to implement and use
polymorphic semantic values is fairly small. In fact, only a very basic
polymorphic semantic base class needs to be implemented. Having defined the
polymorphic base class template meta programming techniques can be used to let
the compiler create all derived classes we might need. The amount of works
turns out to be astonishingly small. What about the `free lunch'? Well, the
approach works fine in situations where we either can deduce the actual
semantic value from the grammar (i.e., the syntax) itself, or where we
occasionally are willing to use a switch to select the actual semantic
value. This rather weak assumption holds true for the grammar used by the
program developed in this section, so let's get on with it!

The program developed in this section recognizes input consisting of lines
suggesting assignment statements or function calls:
        verb(    value:
        int
    |
        ident
    ;

    arglist:
        arglist ',' value
    |
        value
    ;

    rule:
        ident '(' arglist ')' ';'
    |
        ident '=' int ';'
    ;)

An essential characteristic of these simple rules is that three different
semantic value types are used: int-values, names, and vectors of
arguments. Other types could easily be used as well: doubles, complex
numbers, sets; you name it.

    Our semantic value must accommodate all of these different types, and must
also allow us to determine the actual type that's stored in a semantic value
in cases where we cannot deduce the actual type merely from the syntax (which
happens, e.g., for the various semantic value types that may be contained in
an tt(arglist)).

    In the following sections we'll develop the parser using a polymorphic
base class to handle its semantic values. To prevent excessive copying of
semantic values the parser's actual semantic value is not the semantic value
itself but a tt(spSemBase), which is a wrapper around a
tt(std::shared_ptr<SemBase>), where tt(SemBase) is our polymorphic base
class (cf. section ref(SPSEMBASE)).

    We'll develop the generic tt(Semantic) class template in steps:
    itemization(
    it() In the next section we'll start by defining em(tags) for the various
semantic data types;
    it() Next, support structs are developed allowing us to indicate whether
semantic data can be modified by the parser or not;
    it() Following this, a trait class is developed allowing us to obtain data
types from tags;
    it() Another trait class is needed to determine the data type that is
returned by the conversion operators of the different semantic data types;
    it() Hereafter the polymorphic base class tt(SemBase) is developed;
    it() Finally, de class template tt(Semantic) is defined, allowing us to
define various semantic value classes, all derived from tt(SemBase)
    )
    The complete demo program is available in the annotations()'s source
archive under the directory tt(yo/concrete/poly2).
