Hello,

I am trying to learn the Boost Serialization Library. Although I like the fundamental principles of the library, using the library so far has proven a nightmare for my project.

To be more precise: I need to serialize objects via pointers to base class. And I need to do it without RTTI. While using extended_type_info_no_rtti for my classes I always get an “unregistered_class” exception at run time.

But I have done the following: in all my classes, in the implementation unit (.cpp) I have included explicitely the headers needed for the archives I use:

#include <boost/archive/text_oarchive.hpp>

#include <boost/archive/text_iarchive.hpp>

Then I have something like that in each class:

#include <boost/serialization/base_object.hpp>

#include <boost/serialization/type_info_implementation.hpp>

#include <boost/serialization/extended_type_info_no_rtti.hpp>

#include <boost/serialization/export.hpp>

namespace boost {

namespace serialization {

template<class Archive>

void serialize(Archive & ar, PrimitiveMemberVariableSpecification & m, const unsigned int version)

{

     ar & boost::serialization::base_object<MemberVariableSpecification>(m);

     ar & m.unused_primitive_type;

}

} // namespace serialization

} // namespace boost

BOOST_CLASS_TYPE_INFO(

    PrimitiveMemberVariableSpecification,

    extended_type_info_no_rtti<PrimitiveMemberVariableSpecification>

)

BOOST_CLASS_EXPORT(PrimitiveMemberVariableSpecification)

(Here the name of the class is PrimitiveMemberVariableSpecification.

I also want to report a bug in the documentation: the doc says that you should write:

 BOOST_CLASS_TYPE_INFO(

    ClassName,

    extended_type_info_no_rtti<BaseClassName>

)

Although the example test_no_rtti.cpp uses the following syntax:

BOOST_CLASS_TYPE_INFO(

    ClassName,

    extended_type_info_no_rtti<ClassName>

)

I think that the example is right, not the documentation.

)

Normally the BOOST_CLASS_EXPORT should *register* all my classes. Why doesn’t it work? I have of course also written a correct get_key() virtual function for all my classes.

If I just change extended_type_info_no_rtti to extended_type_info_typeid, everything works fine, but I do want extended_type_info_no_rtti.

Also, keeping everything in the headers files seems to be a nightmare, although that is what Robert Ramsey recommends. I get tons of multiple definitions errors at link time if I do that (something like: multiple definition of `boost::archive::detail::guid_initializer<MemberVariableSpecification>::instance' with gcc – MinGW 3.4.2)

I have looked at the documentation for two days, read absolutely everything and still do not understand. Maybe I should look at the code ???

Thank you

Jean-Noël