[boost] boost serialization backwards compatibility of binary archives broken

Subject: [boost] boost serialization backwards compatibility of binary archives broken
From: Markus Henschel (markus.henschel_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-02-20 12:38:02

Hello,

in its current state boost serialization isn't able to read binary archives from older versions. The documentation states that there is a problem with version 1.42-1.44 but this is not the whole story. My archives from 1.34 don't work either. There are currently open bugs for this:

https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/4903
https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/5567
https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/4660

This situation has been like this for a very long time now. Comments of users even suggest not using binary archives or switching to another serialization library because of maintenance problems. I'm posting to this list as it seems like no one cares about these bug reports anymore. The least thing that should be done I think is to update the release notes. There are even patches in the bug reports that provide fixes although I don't know if they work for all situations. The current situation is quite uncomfortable for me as I have to patch every new boost version to get serialization working.

What can be done to improve this situation?

Thanks,

Markus Henschel