Re: [boost] Serialization & XML (was Serialization Library Review)

From: Matthias Troyer (troyer_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-11-19 02:09:00

On Tuesday, November 19, 2002, at 06:22 AM, David Bergman wrote:

> Hi,
>
> This is a comment from the Java corner of the world: I have, as many
> other developers using Java, implemented serialization of objects onto
> XML. It is not that hard, although there might not exist (can anyone
> verify this?) a standardized (more or less...) "C++ Object XML Format".
>
>
> There are two alternatives:
>
> 1. Use an intelligible XML Application (yes, that is what the XML folks
> call the specific XML languages, such as XHTML...), giving not only
> platform independence (which I assume the serializer module already
> achieves...) but language independence, i.e., the object or value can 
> be
> unmarshalled, or generated, by a Python program, much in the spirit of
> the good old XDR.

As nice as the idea  is, there are C++ types that cannot be represented 
in Java. Just consider templates or multiple inheritance (from two or 
more base classes where neither can be represented as a Java interface)

> 2. Embed the binary output of the existing serializer in an XML 
> element.
> This constrains the XML snippet to this particular serialization
> algorithm, including, at least initially, to the C++ language.

Sure, that is possible but probably not very suitable.

I guess another alternative is

3. allow the support of a user-defined schema for his classes with as 
little constraints as possible. The questions now are: what are the 
present constraints? I do not know.

Matthias