*force a type to be viewed as a container-type when serialized to Lua*
..code-block:: cpp
template <typename T>
struct as_returns_t { ... };
template <typename T>
as_returns_t<T> as_returns( T&& );
Sometimes, you have a type whose metatable you claim with a usertype metatable via :doc:`usertype semantics<usertype>`. But, it still has parts of it that make it behave like a container in C++: A ``value_type`` typedef, an ``iterator`` typedef, a ``begin``, an ``end``, and other things that satisfy the `Container requirements`_ or the `Sequence Container requirements`_ or behaves like a `forward_list`_.
Whatever the case is, you need it to be returned to Lua and have many of the traits and functionality described in the :doc:`containers documentation<../containers>`. Wrap a return type or a setter in ``sol::as_container( value );`` to allow for a type to be treated like a container, regardless of whether ``sol::is_container`` triggers or not.
See `this container example`_ to see how it works.
