Re: [Boost-users] [serialisation]Portable Binary Archives

From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-06-27 11:53:43

Hughes, James wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: boost-users-bounces_at_[hidden]
>> [mailto:boost-users-bounces_at_[hidden]] On Behalf Of Cliff Green
>> Sent: 26 June 2007 23:58
>> To: boost-users_at_[hidden]
>> Subject: Re: [Boost-users] [serialisation]Portable Binary Archives
>>
>>> Probably answered before, but I wondered whether there is a standard
>>> implementation for portable binary archives available.
>>
>> I'm not quite sure what you mean by "standard implementation"
>> - there are a number of commonly used portable binary
>> approaches or standards. For example, XDR (IETF standard) has
>> been around for quite a while:
>>
>> http://tools.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4506.txt

When I looked at this it seemed to me that XDR only dealt with
primitive types.  So it would seem easy to make an XDR archive.
Such an archive would have all XDR types, but would have
some data members relevent to serialization - like obect
ids for tracked types.  This would still be XDR compatible
but its not clear that it would still be portable for other
languages like say FORTRAN.  Perhaps it might be
possible to make an XDR archive which would not
permit things like serialization of pointers.

>>
>> as well as SDXF (not sure how much it is used):
>>
>> http://tools.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3072.txt

Don't know anything about this.
>>
>> There's CDR, used in CORBA and other libraries or frameworks
>> where interoperability is needed:

I made a very cursory examination of CDR and it seems an
enhancement of XDR.  It does have the concept of structures
and object tags so its concievable that one might make
a CDR archive.

>> If you're talking about portable binary archives for
>> Boost.Serialization, there's been talk, but I'm not sure what
>> the status is - anyone have an implementation? I'd be willing
>> to help / work with someone on it.

Talk to John Rade.

> That's what I am looking for. We need to get the file sizes down. We
> could use text (XML is great for debugging but too big for final
> release), but again that has its overheads. We generally don't use
> floating point so that may help us. The link I posted does have a
> portable implementation which I think uses IEEE754. I just wondered if
> there was an official boost:serilisation version; obviously not!!

I don't think binary archives are going to be smaller than the equivalent
text archive.  native binary archives are built for speed, text for
portability, and xml to satisfy those who feel they need it.

Robert Ramey