This is not portable across platforms (32/64 for example). I wish to use the portability of ascii when needed. But I want to option to be non-portable (without the stringstream/lexical_cast<string> or gzip) in order to speed up the serialization process.

I don't see what lexical cast is doing in there. What's the matter with: numerics -> binary_archive -> gzip -> out_file Robert Ramey

Johann Goetz wrote:

Consider the following serialization archive. I can serialize a collection of variables (floats, ints, etc) through the series: numerics --> text_oarchive --> gzip --> output_file The text_archive step is essentially a stringstream filter. This filter gives the serialization the portability I (sometimes) need.

namespace io = boost::iostreams; namespace ar = boost::archive;

io::filtering_ostream fos; fis.push(io::gzip_compressor()); fis.push(io::file_sink("output.txt.gz")); ar::text_oarchive oa(fos);

OK. Now what I wish to do is to create a binary_archive and to push the stringstream filter to the filtering_ostream: numerics -> binary_archive -> lexical_cast<string> -> gzip -> out_file This way I could turn this part (and the gzip) on or off at will (the ol' speed vs portability thing):

io::filtering_ostream fos; fis.push(/*stringstream_filter*/); fis.push(io::gzip_compressor()); fis.push(io::file_sink("output.txt.gz")); ar::binary_oarchive oa(fos);

I am not sure how to create such a filter, but I'm guessing such a filter already exists. Perhaps the answer lies in lexical_cast<string>? any help with this would be greatly appreciated, thanks! Johann.