Re: [boost] Serialization support

From: Rene Rivera (grafikrobot_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-05-05 13:04:26

JOAQUIN LOPEZ MU?Z wrote:

> Ok now I understand, and basically share, your concerns
> about the lack of documentation on what goes into the serialization
> stream.

I'm not sure you see the full scope of what Peter is raising, or perhaps 
I'm reading more into it :-) It is not enough to document the 
serialization for, nor the serialization procedure, as that leaves out 
non-Boost Serialization implementations. I happen to have one of those 
non-Boost implementations, and it's implemented non-intrusively. In 
thinking about the scope of designing a serializable class, I consider 
the case of writing an external copy algorithm. If I can't write a copy 
function that given one instance will create an equivalent instance, 
then the class isn't usefully serializable. This aspect isn't important 
just for serialization, but also for general algorithm design. If you 
can't get at a consistent, reproducible, state of an instance it limits 
the number of algorithms you can apply to it.

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