Re: [boost] [serialization] proposed improvements: forward-compatibility of serialization

Subject: Re: [boost] [serialization] proposed improvements: forward-compatibility of serialization
From: Bjorn Reese (breese_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-04-15 06:29:33

On 04/15/2014 05:14 AM, Jeremy Maitin-Shepard wrote:

> If you are not already aware of it, you might want to look into Google
> Protocol Buffers.  It doesn't directly interface with existing C++ types as
> conveniently as Boost Serialization, but it is specifically designed to
> support forward and backward compatibility, and I believe provides all of
> the functionality you are looking for.

I was also thinking Protocol Buffers when I read the original post.
Unlike the size-based proposal in the original post, Protocol Buffers
also handles the case where you remove parameters from the API.

While you are correct that Protocol Buffers has a different interface
than Boost.Serialization, I believe that it is possible to create a
Boost.Serialization archive for Protocol Buffers, although we would
have to introduce an index-value pair, similar to the named-value
pair.