[boost] RE: Serialization Library Review

From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-11-17 12:51:16

From: "Peter Dimov" <pdimov_at_[hidden]>

>> I'm really interested in the XDR format, not because I care about the
>> format itself, but because others seem to use it as some sort of litmus
>> test for serialization libraries. Thus knowing that Robert's library
>> handles XDR well is of interest.

>FWIW, in my experience, XML is a better test for whether a serialization
>library handles custom formats well. Sequence-based, header-only formats are
>very similar, but a reasonable XML serializer creates a tree-like
>representation, with nested tags.

After a cursory investigation as to what it would take to make an XML
archive, I've concluded that:

a) I don't thing XML is rich enough to capture all possible C++ data structures

b) This would imply the creation of a system of reflection for C++
    i) I not convinced this is a good idea
    ii) should be dealt with as an indepent project in any case

c) XML has a central task to represent data in a platform/programming language
independent way.  Serialization has the central task of saving/restore the
totality of the state of C++ data structures.  These tasks are not identical
and any course of action based on the presumption that they are is
doomed to be frustrating an most likely a failure in my opinion.

Robert Ramey