[Boost-users] Serialization/pickle

From: Drumheller, Michael (michael.drumheller_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-12-06 11:58:11

>>  From: David Abrahams <dave <at> boost-consulting.com>
>>  Subject: Re: Boost.python serialization
>>  Newsgroups: gmane.comp.lib.boost.user
>>  Date: 2005-11-29 23:28:17 GMT (6 days, 17 hours and 9 minutes ago)
>>  
>>  "Drumheller, Michael" <michael.drumheller <at> boeing.com> writes:
>>  
>>  > Thank you for the help.  I have seen that link (the one you
supplied)
>>  > before, but I posted my question because that link in particular
does
>>  > not mention the words "Boost.Serialization" or "Archive" at all.  
>>  
>>  That's because the Boost Serialization library is unrelated.

I understand that it is technically unrelated.  I am asking for
information about about patterns of actual usage.

>>  > I suppose what I was really getting at, and was probably not very
>>  > clear about (sorry :| ) was whether the specific approach (by
>>  > N. Becker) of using a stringstream wrapped with a
>>  > boost::archive::binary_oarchive is a standard idiom.
>>  
>>  "Standard?"

OK: "common," "popular," "preferred," "regarded-as-best-practice,"
"effective."

>>  > (Basically, I would have thought that "python pickle
boost::archive"
>>  > would be a million-hit Google query, but it's only about a dozen.
I
>>  > find that weird.  Do people just not serialize their C++
extensions
>>  > very often?)
>>  
>>  Yes, they do it very often.  There's usually no need to touch
>>  Boost.Serialization in order to do so, though.

My extensions refer to one another, i.e., they form a significant object
hierarchy in and of themselves.  E.g., on the C++ side I might have an
instance x of class X, which contains a vector of shared_ptrs p1,...,pn
to instances y1,...,yn of another C++ class Y.  At pickle-time there may
be Python object z with a member u bound to to x and members w1,...,wm
bound to a subset of the y1,...,yn.  Is it even feasible to expect to be
able to simple pickle.dump z and have it all work?

Please keep in mind:  I am just getting started wading into serializing
a pretty complicated set of strongly interdependent Python and C++
objects and I am just trying to get my bearings.  If this is the wrong
forum to be asking these questions, please tell me.
 
MD

>>  -- 
>>  Dave Abrahams
>>  Boost Consulting
>>  www.boost-consulting.com