Re: [boost] Serialization Submission version 6

From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-11-14 08:45:22

I believe I have found the an acceptable resolution to the "registration" cunundrum.

The whole problem was generated by by the fact that type_info is not portable
and in my view never can be and wouldn't help anyway.

Hence a function that did class->unique class identifer could not exist.

I realize now that we don't really require that such a function exist.

How about this.

I conjure up something like (pseudo code):

register_cross_program_class_identifier<class T>(const char *id="T")

This would be invoked for each class declaration. Now we have
a portable id associated with each class - exactly what we need.
Polymorphic pointers would archive this tag and use it
to determine the proper class to construct on loading.

The default class identifier would be the text representation of the class name.
(note: in general not necessarily the same as type_info.name() )
which is going to be sufficent for almost all cases.

If one has concerns about the universality of his class identifier
(e.g. a class named window or some such) or if one wants to
do something more ambitious (e.g. plug-in system) he will
be free to use any other const string to identify his class
by overriding the default. 

explicit invocation of basic_[i|o]archive::register_type would no longer be necessary.
I believe this would resolve the whole issue to everyone's satisfaction.

Robert Ramey