Re: [boost] [Boost Review] Property Tree Library

From: Peter Dimov (pdimov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-04-24 09:03:29

Marcin Kalicinski wrote:

>> I seems like you is very confused yourself about positioning of your
>> library.
>
> You are right. I made an effort to change this state of things.
> Please read it in another thread
> "[Property Tree] Problem domain". Here's the shortcut
> http://tinyurl.com/fjmdd

"Get it working for 80% of cases now, rather than for 100% never."

This is a very good summary.

I can add to

    5. target for boost::serialization (ptree_archive).

that once you have an in-memory archive, you can now edit the in-memory 
representation with a graphical editor, and deserialize the result back to 
C++. This allows you to edit your C++ data structures in a live program; you 
have no idea how convenient this is if you haven't tried it!

Whether ptree supports this adequately remains to be seen.

There's also

7. If you keep your program objects in a ptree, it is relatively easy to add 
a quick scripting interface. Given

    namespace.(namespace...).object.verb

get an object pointer from the ptree by using 
"namespace.(namespace...).object" as a path, then invoke verb on that 
object. For all its simplicity, this is amazingly useful, too. You can build 
a key binding module on top of that:

    ctrl+o    factory.document.open
    ctrl+n    factory.document.new

and so on. You can also add events to your buttons or menus in this way. 
It's not Python, but it may be enough.