Re: Jason is getting MARRIED!

From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2019-12-08 16:55:43

On 12/8/19 7:48 AM, Peter Dimov via Boost wrote:

> As I already stated in a previous message, if your reader can only read 
> what your writer writes, your format is JSON in name only. A "real" JSON 
> reader must be able to read not just the literal output of the writer, 
> but a modified JSON file that is (per spec) equivalent to the original.

By that definition the XML serialization implemented in the Boost 
Serialization is not a "real" XML reader.  So what.  No serialization 
library can claim to be able to read arbitrary input and automatically 
map it so some pre-determined C++ data structure.

If someone is interested in a JSON format for boost serialization, he 
can use the current XML setup as a model.  If one feels that the current 
XML implementation is not a "real" parser - that's OK too.  I do get a 
complaint from time to time that XML archive cannot be freely edited - 
but not by anyone who understands the inherent limitations of what a C++ 
serialization can do.

> Which includes reordered fields, as you yourself wrote in the very 
> previous paragraph.
> 
>> Firstly, JSON Object is unordered, so any key permutation is a valid 
>> syntax. ECMA-404 is quite explicit about this.

And for those who might want a system of editable archives - there's 
another good model: Google protocol buffers. That might be a system 
where one describes a data structure in terms of some JSON primitives 
and the user uses a parser to pick this apart to build his C++ data 
structure and maintains this coupling as time goes on.  This might be a 
viable, and/or interesting system, but it's unrelated to what Boost 
serialization currently is and has been for 15 years.

Robert Ramey