The way to do this is as follows: define your "special type" as a "wrapper" with its own special rules implemented in it serialize function. e.g. template<class T> struct special_numeric_type { // data T &| m_data; // holds every kind of ata ... serialize(Archive, ar, .... template<class U> special_numeric_type(U & u) // better be convertible to a type T !!! m_data(&u) {} }; BOOST...?..IS_WRAPPER(special_numeric_type) serialize with float x; complex<double> y; ar & make_special_numeric_type(x); ar & make_special_numeric_type(x); ... Now your can implement any kind of fancy process you want inside the wrapper. This will apply to those variables - and only those variables you want to take with wrapper. So you have total control without mucking up the rest of your program. You can look into NVP for examples. Robert Ramey. Ivan Gonzalez wrote:

Dear all,

I'm using the serialization library to serialize some classes to a binary archive. These classes are basically arrays of some numerical type. As an example say they are doubles. Later I would like to read one of these binary archives into the same structure but using another numerical type, to which you could promote the first one. Say for example std::complex<double>. If I was using a simply a text file, I could read the double, without caring about its original type, into the new type because it will be automatically promoted. You can not do this with the binary file.

So my question is, is there any way to extract information about the class stored in the binary archive, in this case the numerical type of the array?

I thought in using the version number of the class to label the original type, is this the only way?

In coding:

template<class T> struct SimpleClass{

typedef T num_type; num_type data_;

template<class Archive> void serialize(Archive ar, const unsigned int version) { ar & data_; } };

Now given a binary archive containing a instance of SimpleClass<double>, how to read it to an instance of SimpleClass<std::complex<double> > ? If I could get directly from the file the type SimpleClass::num_type then I could write a constructor in the SimpleClass to promote one to the other.

Thanks in advance.

Best,

Ivan