Representing optional values in D - d

Question

I'm about to write a parser to read a text file line by line into structs of different types and giving these structs to a callback (observer or visitor - not sure yet).
The text file contains MT-940 data - a SWIFT bank statement.
These lines consist of a marker which specifies the type and some fields - e.g. a date - which should be parsed into type-safe members of my message. Some of these fields are optional - so my question is: How do I represent optional values in D.
C++ provides my things like boost::optional which you might know.
I currenty work around this by implementing an Optional(T) on my own (see code at the end of this post). It is a struct which contains a ValueHolder instance which might be null - which marks the case where no value has been assigned. I overwrote the copy-c'tor and the assignment operator to create a deep-copy of the ValueHolder if necessary.
Is this the way to go? Is there any other - more simple - option I just cannot see?
This is my code - not necessarily feature complete yet:
struct Optional(T)
{
class ValueHolder
{
T value;
this(T v)
{
value = v;
}
}
private ValueHolder m_value;
/* Construction without value / with value */
this(T value)
{
m_value = new ValueHolder(value);
}
/* Copy construction / assignment */
ref Optional!(T) opAssign(Optional!(T) rhs)
out
{
if (rhs.m_value !is null)
{
assert(rhs.m_value != m_value);
}
else
{
assert(m_value is null);
}
}
body
{
m_value = null;
if (rhs)
{
m_value = new ValueHolder(rhs.m_value.value);
}
return this;
}
ref Optional!(T) opAssign(T value)
out
{
assert(hasValue());
assert(m_value.value == value);
}
body
{
if (m_value is null)
{
m_value = new ValueHolder(value);
}
else
{
m_value.value = value;
}
return this;
}
this(Optional!(T) rhs)
out
{
if (rhs.m_value !is null)
{
assert(rhs.m_value != m_value);
}
else
{
assert(m_value is null);
}
}
body
{
if (rhs.m_value !is null)
{
m_value = new ValueHolder(rhs.m_value.value);
}
}
/* Implicit cast to bool */
bool hasValue() const
{
return m_value !is null;
}
X opCast(X: bool)()
{
return hasValue();
}
/* Value access */
T opUnary(string s)() const
in
{
assert(s == "*");
assert(m_value !is null);
}
body
{
return m_value.value;
}
}
/* Default Constructed Struct does not have a value assigned */
unittest
{
Optional!(int) x;
assert(x.hasValue() == false);
assert(!x);
}
/* Construction with value */
unittest
{
Optional!(int) x = 3;
assert(x);
assert(x.hasValue());
}
/* Assignment operator does copy the value */
unittest
{
Optional!(int) x = 3;
Optional!(int) y;
assert(x);
assert(!y);
y = x;
assert(&x != &y);
assert(x);
assert(y);
y = 12;
assert(x.m_value.value != y.m_value.value);
assert(*y == 12);
Optional!(int) z;
x = z;
assert(!x);
assert(!z);
assert(y);
}

Answer 1

For optional values, the D standard library provides the struct template Nullable in the module std.typecons.