Re: [Boost-users] [serialization] how to serialize boost::function

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] [serialization] how to serialize boost::function
From: Chard (boost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-09-15 16:03:53

"Igor R" <boost.lists_at_[hidden]> wrote in message 
news:cfe0a3cf0909150846l4290d47yd03b8ea7f33e0b53_at_mail.gmail.com...
>
> Ok, thank you. So the way to go is to make "manual" function objects...

We have a system that serializes boost::function - they are used as factory 
objects that are sent through sockets (via asio).

We only support serializing boost::function with functors, but the mechanism 
works well.  Fortunately, boost::function has the target<> method that can 
be used to get access to the original type.

As touched upon by an earlier post, we have to look up the types from some 
kind of registry that associates the boost::function (the signature) with 
the type (the functor) that can be assigned into it.  This means we have to 
register each association, but this is similar to registering polymorphic 
class types (i.e. archive.register_type<>).

It may be possible to generalize the mechanism, but it would probably 
require a new export macro that can associate the types, e.g. a 
BOOST_FUNCTION_EXPORT(signature, func_name, type, type_name) to go along 
with BOOST_CLASS_EXPORT.