Re: [Boost-users] [serialization] How to serialize as an XML attribute?

From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-05-19 11:56:28

The right place to do this would be in a different version
of xml_?archive.  Such a version might be crafted from
scratch or implemented as a derivation from the current
xml_?archive.

The current xml_?archive has special handling for
nvp.  Your new version might have a different
kind of special handling for nvp.

When I looked at it, I decided to make all data
elements xml elements - reserving attributes for
"special" stuff like object id etc.  It turned out that
there were already xml attribute tags defined which
mapped pretty well to the things that I was using
like object id - reference to a previous object id
etc.  So that's what I used.

When serializing collections, I did consider the idea
of making the number of elements as an attribute
rather than an xml element, but I rejected that
as it would create a "special handling" of some
types to the xml_?archive which I saw as less
symetic and more coupled and a future maintainence
headache.

I was very careful to leave the door open to a more
elaborate xml archive. XML is very loose and open
ended - I chose plain vanilla.   Users are free to
add their own sauce.

Good luck.

Robert Ramey

Peter Schregle wrote:
> Is it thinkable that some values could be serialized as XML
> attributes and not as XML elements?
> Where would be the correct place to add this functionality?
> I'm thinking to override the nvp and xml_archive. Is this the correct
> place to look at?
>
> Best regards
> Peter