Re: [boost] [serialize] Handling multiple files, deferred marshalling, and progressive loading

From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-06-29 10:48:45

SeskaPeel wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm considering integrating boost::serialize in our application,
> mainly for its deep pointer restoration, but I fear some features are
> missing.
>
> 1/ First, we are using multiple files, which can be created at
> different moments. The main reason is that we want to be able to
> share resources contained in one file for multiple projects. An alarm
> rung in my head
> telling me that serialize won't be able to handle this case,

why not?

> am I wrong?

I think so.

> 2/ And secondly, we want to be able to load files progressively, say
> 100KB
> by 100KB. Once the file is completely loaded, the pointer restoration
> can happen. Does serialize support such feature or plan to? If this
> is not a
> huge work, is there a way to provide help to get this feature quickly?

I'm not sure what this means.  Taking a wild guess, I would seem that want 
you might want to do is run serialization on a separate thread.  If you want 
to "interrupt or suspend that thread, this would require support from a 
custom archive.  Such a custom archive would be derived from one of the 
existing ones.

>
> Today, we have a manual phase of association that is called after all
> files are loaded. Each time we load a new file, we "post-load" all
> the resources contained in it, and pointer restoration is achieved
> this way.

In the serialization library, pointers are restored "on the fly" (depth 
first).

Robert Ramey