Re: [boost] JSON Archives for Boost.serialization

From: Sohail Somani (sohail_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-03-22 14:56:14

On Sat, 22 Mar 2008 10:10:35 -0700, Jeff Garland wrote:

> Programs written in C++ often need to inter communicate with programs
> written in other languages.  Or they need to store data structures in a
> form that can be processed by programs written in another language. JSON
> is now a common format for doing this and has parsers any many
> languages.

The main problem as I see it anyway, is that even though there are many 
parsers, there is a boost-serialization-specific way to interpret the 
data. I think it is possible to write two different types of JSON 
archives: one that is meant to interface with the outside world and 
another that is just another proprietary serialization format.

If you look at the XML archive as an example, it is clear that any non 
boost-serialization processor needs to do specific things to understand 
the output. Specifically, the presence of object graphs is what I would 
see as the biggest hurdle.

I think if you want the JSON archive to interface with the outside world, 
you should forgo object graph support. Or atleast support both modes.

Here is an example of the xml archive output:
  http://boost.org/libs/serialization/example/demo_save.xml

I'd be interested in what other people have to say about this.

-- 
Sohail Somani
http://uint32t.blogspot.com