[Boost-users] [Serialization] How non-portable is the non-portable Binary Archive?

Subject: [Boost-users] [Serialization] How non-portable is the non-portable Binary Archive?
From: James Madison (jmadisondev_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-12-28 05:34:09

I am interested in using boost serialization for a project I am currently
working on, but two requirements are hurting me.  First, the archives have
to be portable.  Second, it's critical to keep the message size under a
certain threshold which the text archives blow through.

So I am wondering if I can somehow get away with using a binary archive,
even though my choices seem to be a non-portable version, or a unsanctioned
tested version.

Oh, and I am pretty much stuck using Boost 1.32.

So, basically, I am wondering:

1.  How non-portable is the non-portable archive?  While this is a mixed
windows/linux environment, all the computers are running as x86 or x86_64,
so the endian is the same and word boundary restrictions are mostly the
same.  Unfortunately, the mapping of data types might not be the same.  Is
there a simple way to test this if the answer is "maybe"?

2.  How stable is the portable archive?  Reading through the release notes
for 1.37 it seems like that the code is solid, except for encoding doubles,
which would not be a problem.  Of course, I am being forced to use 1.32,
which might be much more unstable . . .

Thanks in advance for any replies.