[boost] Visitor-based framework to describe classes with example of objectdump in XML format

From: Alexander Nasonov (alnsn-mycop_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-07-07 06:08:29

This framework might be interested to those who wishes to read and write 
members of classes using member-names. Stuff like serialization, messaging, 
automatic binding of class members with GUI/Web forms and OODBs (although 
they have ODMG C++ binding).

>From user point of view it's easy. Every class is described using intuitive 
class-decl-like style:

void describe_Driver(descriptor<Driver>& class_)
{
    class_("Driver").derived_from<Person>()
    [
        member(&Driver::licence_id, "licence_id"), // note comma operator
        member(&Driver::licence_issue_date, "licence_issue_date")
    ];
}

then it's registered:

namespace {
  register_class<Driver, &describe_Driver> reg_Driver;
}

and that's all!

The framework is low level access to class and member information but it's 
made using visitor, so it's very flexible and different add-ons can be 
built on top of it. I implemented XML dump of objects. Currently, only 
limited set of basic types are supported (int, char and std::string) but 
it's easy to extend it. Pointers are not yet supported, it's a task for a 
future.
Get it from here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/boost/files/describe_classes.tar.gz

BTW, I can imagine HTML form where members are grouped by classes (bases and 
end class), types of form elements are determined automatically from member 
information and pointers are represented as references. Most exciting is 
that you get it using one function call! (if you described all classes 
earlier).

-- 
Alexander Nasonov
Remove minus and all between minus and at from my e-mail for timely response