[Boost-users] Boost MPI + Serialization

Subject: [Boost-users] Boost MPI + Serialization
From: Raymond Wan (rwan_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-11-10 12:00:04

Hi all,

I am using Boost MPI and would like to send user-defined objects between 
processes.  As the Boost MPI tutorial / documentation suggests 
(http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_37_0/doc/html/mpi/tutorial.html), I 
should use serialization and in this document, they show an example 
class gps_position which is a friend with boost::serialization::access.

So far, I understand what's going on, but I don't know what is the next 
step.  The example in the documentation stops there and  says that the 
example continues in the Serialization document.  It also just mentions 
that one could store it in many forms, such as XML on disk, in addition 
to sending it to processes.  If all I want to do is send it between 
processes, which one of the formats listed in boost/archive/*.hpp should 
I use?  In the Serialization document, it continues by creating a 
boost::archive::text_oarchive object.

But, if I am sending things like vectors of unsigned integers and 
strings, a binary format should be more compact?  Or does this not 
matter and sticking with the Serialization example is fine?

Thank you in advance!

Ray