Re: [Boost-users] Serialized as what?

From: Adam M (boost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-11-10 10:10:11

Hi Merrill,

Currently Boost.Serialization supports XML and "text" archives, although
XDR is reportedly in the near future.

As for the specifications for the "text" format, I recently posed this
question to Robert Ramey himself:

***************************************************

Short answer is no.

Information on this can be found as comments in the source code.  Look
in one of the library files *_archive.cpp.  I forget which ones.

I know this might seem odd but there is a good reason.  Archives are
defined in pairs - saving and loading.  The only real requirement is
that the be mutually compatible.  This permits the same user code to
support very wide differences in archive types from binary to xml and
who knows what else.

That is, the archive format for say a text_?archive could be documented
for external use but it is considered an implementation detail
text_archives.

You might consider xml_archives for this job.  It would still be
something of a job, but it would be much easier because the xml archives
are human readable.

Good Luck.

Robert Ramey

-----Original Message-----
From: Adam McLaurin [mailto:adam.mclaurin_at_[hidden]]
Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 6:45 PM
To: ramey_at_[hidden]
Subject: Documentation on Boost text archive format

Hi Robert,

I am using the Boost.Serialization text archive to serialize my data
before putting it out on the wire. However, I have found absolutely no
documentation that actually defines the format.

I anticipate that there will be Java consumers of my data, so I'd like
to be able to provide them with the format specifications so that they
can implement their own deserializer.

Do you have any format specifications that I could distribute?

Thanks,
Adam McLaurin

***************************************************

On Thu, 10 Nov 2005 08:57:14 -0600 (GMT-06:00), "Merrill Cornish"
<merrill.cornish_at_[hidden]> said:
> What external file format does the Boost Serialization Library use?  
> 
> The introduction to the library states the requirement that serialization
> written by one machine must be readable by a different machine.   And,
> elsewhere, it mentions that and XML intermediate file is on possibility;
> but I can't seem to find what the format being used is.
> 
> Merrill
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