Sorry if my question seems somehow weird. I already posted a similar one to the users list but with no result. So I try again but also post a small example to make my question clear. The purpose of the example is to autoconnect a couple of member classes to a containing class without the need to explicitely call the constructors of the member classes: #include <boost/signal.hpp> #include <boost/any.hpp> #include <boost/bind.hpp> boost::any pinit; // todo: should be thread local in MT version template<typename Function> struct ctor_signal_push : public boost::signal<Function>{ ctor_signal_push() { pinit = this; } // todo: make it a stack }; template<typename Signature, typename Function> void ctor_connect(Function fn) { boost::any_cast<ctor_signal_push<Signature>* >(pinit)->connect(fn); // can this be done without the Signature parameter? // i.e. can the Signature be deduced from Function? (which might be a functor) } class A; class B { public: B() { ctor_connect<void (A*)>(boost::bind(init, this, _1)); } void init(A* p) { pOuter = p; }; A* pOuter; }; class C { public: C() { ctor_connect<void (A*)>(boost::bind(init, this, _1)); } void init(A* p) { pOuter = p; }; A* pOuter; }; class A { public: A(); ctor_signal_push<void (A*)> init; B aB; C aC; B aB1; B aB2; // ctor_signal_pop; }; A::A() { init(this); // connect all member classes } int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { A aA; return 0; } This does work well so far, but I would like to get rid of the explicit "void (A*)" parameter in ctor_connect<void (A*)>(boost::bind(init, this, _1)); Is this possible? Perhaps I am even trying to do something that I should better avoid because there is a better solution available. Does anyone know? Thank you for any hints, Roland