Re: [boost] [serialization] use of unsigned int instead of size_type

From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-02-11 14:52:18

David Abrahams wrote:
> "Robert Ramey" <ramey_at_[hidden]> writes:
>
>> I was expecting to see your enhancements for arrays to get
>> included and for collection_size (or whatever)  to be part of this.
>> I'm not sure what status of this is and/or if it conflicts with the
>> recent feature
>> freeze.
>
> IMO the size_type change should be considered a bugfix, as it was not
> possible to portably serialize collections

of over 4 G objects

>without it.

We could change it to std::size_t, but I'm not sure that is what we really
want for this.  the number of items in a collection is sort a different 
thing
than the size that something comsumes in memory which is what I
interprete std::size_t to be.  So a special collection_count_type or
something like that has been considered but I haven't investigated
the implications of this.  Such a change affects
archives forever in the future.  For these reasons,  I have been reluctant 
to
"just do it"

Robert Ramey