I can't speak to what support is present in boost serialization, but I have a lot of code that needs to deal with multiple versions of classes or data structures. I've found that the best way to deal with that is to store a version number as a data member and then handle the schema evolution internally in the class. In general, it is the responsibility of a class to handle older versions "appropriately" whatever that means to you in your context. If the version number is the FIRST data member of the class (in an I/O or serialization context), then you can easily write code to handle multiple versions during I/O and/or serialization.

On Jul 15, 2011, at 11:00 AM, boost-users-request@lists.boost.org wrote:

From: Don <dm413-boost@intielectronics.com>
Date: July 15, 2011 7:27:07 AM CDT
To: "boost-users@lists.boost.org" <boost-users@lists.boost.org>
Subject: [Boost-users] [Serialization] Writing an old version of a class
Reply-To: "boost-users@lists.boost.org" <boost-users@lists.boost.org>

I apologize if this is a duplicate posting. I sent this 2 days ago, and it appears in the archives, but I never received it back from the list and there have been no replies, so I am posting it again.

Using boost serialization, I would like to be able to write an old version of a class, so that I can save data in an "old" format to allow other users with an old version of my program to read the file.

I see from the archives that this has come up before, and Robert Ramey indicated it was doable and on the todo list, but I don't see it in the release notes or documentation. Did anything every come of this?

Or, has anyone else done this? Any suggestions on how to accomplish this?

Thanks,

Don