[boost] Serialization and Reflection

From: craigp_at_[hidden]
Date: 2002-12-16 14:07:45

I have a couple thoughts on these topics...

First, I found what appears to be a very useful reflection library called
the Program Database Toolkit (PDT) at
http://www.cs.uoregon.edu/research/paracomp/pdtoolkit/. In brief, it's
free, uses the EDG front-end to generate IL, has a tool to convert IL to a
human-readable format (called PDB), and finally provides a library
(DUCTAPE) for accessing the PDB files via a reflective API. Their DUCTAPE
API link seems to be broken, so I've attached it (or you can try
http://www.harperperras.com/~craigp/ductape_primer.html).

I don't know if it's possible to create a reflection library for C++
without either resorting to external tools like the PDT or forcing the
user to do much of the work (eg: macros, like this library does
http://www.garret.ru/~knizhnik/cppreflection/docs/reflect.html).
Personally, I'd like it to be as transparent as possible (eg: so it could
work with an existing code base without extensive modification).

Second, in terms of Serialization, I'm willing to create a portable,
efficient binary archiver based on CDR (the format used by CORBA). Since
I'm lazy, I will probably steal most of the code from ACE/TAO
(http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/ACE.html). Note that CDR has minimal
overhead (eg: it has variable byte-ordering, so byte swapping may not be
necessary). If there's interest, let me know.

--craig