[boost] Re: Formal review of "Output Formatters" library begins today

From: Vladimir Prus (ghost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-09-21 00:39:54

Robert Ramey wrote:

> Vladimir Prus wrote:
> 
>>A particularly interesting question is how the proposed library overlaps
>>with serialization. When outputting vector<Function> I'd prefer the
>>content of 'Function' to be outputted too, preferably by describing the
>>members with the 'serialize' method. And the question is if I can use
>>outfmt library, or have to use the serialization library? The
>>serialization library is pretty large, so, I'd like outfmt to be able to
>>output UDT which have 'serialize' defined. IMO, vector<some_UDT> is a very
>>common case, maybe even more common than vector<pair<int, int> >.
> 
> If one had nothing else to do, he could make a derivation of one of the
> existing archives (e.g. text_archive) that would "annotate" the
> serialization.  

It's possible, but the simple-minded
"output_operator_helper_which_uses_the_serialize" method will be very
simple and have much less dependencies than "text_archive".

> This might be useful for debugging or other purposes.  On 
> the other hand, I just use the xml_archive for that purpose now and its
> fine
> (although a little verbose). It also plays nice with XML browsing tools. 
> So that's handy.

Yes, it's a little verbose. 

> My real observation is that I see this as orthogonal to serialization and
> that it should remain that way.  I don't seen any real overlap now except
> that there might be a couple of instances where either one might do.  I
> think even these would be rare cases.  I would resist any idea to
> intertwine these concepts.

I'm lost. What are "these concepts"? What I propose is that the "serialize"
method be usable by the outfmt library to generate more usable output. No
other link between the two libraries is suggested.

- Volodya