Re: [boost] Serialization and Reflection

From: Dave Harris (brangdon_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-12-17 19:43:37

In-Reply-To: <20021217212539.GC1678_at_[hidden]>
On Tue, 17 Dec 2002 16:25:39 -0500 Jeremy Maitin-Shepard (jbms_at_[hidden]) 
wrote:
> I agree that a traditional reflection framework would not be
> suitable.  However, with serialization in mind, I think we can design
> a reusable reflection framework that will be suitable.

Will it be able to load files from existing 3rd party formats?

For example, I currently have a lot of data stored in Microsoft's MFC 
archive format. This includes very little metadata beyond the version 
number. The meaning of fields is defined by their order in the archive, 
and they have a particular system for mapping class names onto object 
factories. Much of this is moderately lame - eg it doesn't support 
namespaces. It will be much easier to switch to the new boost framework if 
archives in the old format can still be loaded (without having 2 lots of 
code).

Is this a reasonable design objective?

-- Dave Harris