[boost] Re: shared_ptr and serialization

From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-11-20 02:05:19

Truth is, the scenario you describe never occurred to me.  It might be
addressable with a more elaborate implementation of weak_ptr serialization
than I proposed - but maybe not.   I'll have to think about it some more.

Robert Ramey

"Russell Hind" <rh_gmane_at_[hidden]> wrote in message
news:cnmmt0$7jk$1_at_sea.gmane.org...
> Robert Ramey wrote:
> >
> > the de-serialization of a vector is somethng like:
> >
> > template<class Archive, class T>
> > void load(Archive ar, vector<T> & v){
> >     unsigned int count;
> >     ar >> count;
> >     v.clear();
> >     while(--count){
> >         T t;
> >         ar >> t;
> >         v.push_back(t)
> >    }
> > }
> >
> >>From my reading of the weak_ptr document, a weak_ptr cannot point to
> > anything if there is no existent correspnding shared pointer.  So the
above
> > would necessarily fail unless a shared_ptr was previously serialized in
the
> > same archive - which is not guarenteed.  In order to use such a data
> > structure, the default implementation of the serialization of vector
would
> > have to be overriden.
>
>  From a users's point of view, how I'd expect/like this to work is that
> if a weak pointer is serialized first, then the actual shared object is
> serialized.  On the way back in (loading) the weak pointer can be read
> and will point to a valid shared object *until* the archive is closed.
> At that point, if the user doesn't have a shared_ptr to the object, then
> the object is deleted but up until then, the weak_ptr is valid.
>
> Yes it is ultimately a user error to serialize *only* a weak pointer,
> but I don't believe it should be a user error to serialize a weak_ptr
> before a shared_ptr.  IMHO, the library should keep the object alive
> (i.e. hold a shared_ptr to any de-serialized pointers, shared or weak)
> until the archive is closed.
>
> But I haven't really looked at the implementation of shared_ptr and
> serialization, so this is just how I'd 'expect' it to work
>
> Cheers
>
> Russell
>
> _______________________________________________
> Unsubscribe & other changes:
http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost
>