Re: [boost] Boost XML Serialization Stability across library versions

Subject: Re: [boost] Boost XML Serialization Stability across library versions
From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2017-01-24 20:54:15

On 1/24/17 3:52 PM, Adlai Shawareb wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We want to generate an Serialized XML archive now, and be able to deserialize it and get the same data it in the future.
>
> Is Boost XML Serialization guaranteed to be compatible across versions of the library?

It is certainly meant to be.  But it is not explicity tested so it can't 
be guaranteed.  If someone wanted to make tests for this, we would look 
into incorporating them into the test suite.

>
> The XML serialized archive would be stored in a memory chip and, in the future, read back and deserialized. I don't believe that would impact the answer, but want to offer that.

Hmmmm.  Remember that the XML generated by the serialization library 
includes special tags to support the recover of the original C++ data 
structure which produced the archive.  So it's not particularly well 
suited to "external" applications and, as far as I know, used to recover 
the data by a C++ program.  So if one is going to do this, I don't see 
much point in using xml.  One could get the same portability while using 
plain text with a lot less overhead.

Robert Ramey

> Adlai
>
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