[Boost-users] serialization library - Serializing classes from a DLL

From: Florian Preknya (mata_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-12-08 04:05:34

Hello,
I am trying to use the boost serialization library to serialize the 
classes from my application (I use Microsoft Visual C++ 7.1 compiler). 
The most of the classes are placed in a DLL, some are in my executable 
project. For this, I had to link (statically) the DLL and the executable 
with boost serialization library. I used the BOOST_CLASS_EXPORT macro 
for all the derived classes that I serialize through a base class 
pointer: in each header, after the class declaration, I added the 
BOOST_CLASS_EXPORT(class_name) line.

The DLL and executable compilation time increased drastically, and both 
the DLL and the executable export tables contain all the entities 
(classes & functions) resulted from the BOOST_CLASS_EXPORT macro 
expansion (and because the BOOST_DLLEXPORT is defined as 
__declspec(dllexport) in force_include.hpp). This happens because I have 
to include the header files from the DLL source files, also from the 
executable project source files.
My question is: where should I put the BOOST_CLASS_EXPORT declarations 
for the DLL classes? Note that I invoke the 
serialization/deserialization only from the executable (not from the 
DLL). I tried to group all the BOOST_CLASS_EXPORT declarations in a cpp 
file in the executable project. It went pretty good, but after inserting 
many declarations, I received the C1204 error (internal structure 
overflow).
Are there "things to know" for using the serialization library from a 
DLL? Also, there are no test projects that cover this aspect.

Thanks a lot,
Florian Preknya