Re: [Boost-users] [Serialization] purpose of GUID

From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-05-15 21:55:34

  "Ingo Nolden" <nuttygraphics_at_[hidden]> wrote in message news:20070515191535.399222F8109_at_wowbagger.osl.iu.edu...
  Hi,

  I am a bit confused about the purpose of GUID. My understanding was, that it is a user defined id for a class, so that the serialization mechanism knows what types to instanciate on load. I somehow assumed it to be a replacement (or equivalent) of the numbers in the class_id attributes.

  *** This is correct.  But the "text ID" (GUID) is used only as a last resort.  That 
  basically boils down to derived pointers.  In other cases, the archive local
  class id can be generated and used instead. So that's what the serialization
  library does
  Robert Ramey