Re: [boost] [serialization] feedback on a possible port of the XML archive grammar to Qi

Subject: Re: [boost] [serialization] feedback on a possible port of the XML archive grammar to Qi
From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-09-01 00:45:53

Bryce Lelbach aka wash wrote:
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> I've recently started working on porting Boost.Serialization's XML
> parser from Spirit Classic to Spirit Qi (I've got some free time on
> my hands, and I heard that there was some interest in this task).
> Before I start putting more time into this, I'd love to get some
> feedback/suggestions and make sure someone else isn't already working
> on this.

> My understanding is that porting the parser from Spirit Classic to
> Spirit Qi will not only speed up XML serialization, but would also
> increase portability (on some compilers, Serialization only works
> with Spirit 1.6, which is not shipped with the latest Boost release).

Spirit 1.6 has to be used on borland compilers since subsequent
versions of spirit don't work on borland.  I don't think that Qi will
work with borland either.  So this would mean that xml serialization
won't work with borland compilers any more.  BUT, the current
version of the library won't build with borland compilers anyway
so undertaking this task won't have any real downside.

> My current plan is to rewrite the grammar in Qi, and modify the
> existing XML archive classes to use the new parser without changing
> the interface or the outputted XML.

This get's my vote. Actually I don't think you'll have to modify
anything other than xml_grammar.cpp.  My understanding is that
Qi is supposed to be much faster than previous versions and
presumably better all around.

There is caveat.  I tweaked the xml_grammar.cpp to use a
lower level entry point in the hopes of permitting xml_archives
to be thread-safe. I believe that this was successful but I can't
know for sure.

Good Luck with this.

Robert Ramey