Re: [Boost-users] [serialization] class versioning changes in boost 1.42 [patch]

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] [serialization] class versioning changes in boost 1.42 [patch]
From: Brian Wood (woodbrian77_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-02-27 17:04:44

Robert Ramey writes:
>David Raulo wrote:
>
>> - this is not mentionned anywhere in the documentation or in the API.
>> - you have at least one user who lost backward archive compatibility
>>  because of this.
>>
>> See below a patch against svn.  Can we please discuss its advantages
>> and drawbacks?
>> - what good does it do: obviously in my case, restore backward
>>  compatibility.
>
> Why can't you just patch your own copy?
>

>From a comedic standpoint I think that's a good answer.

>> - it gives more flexibility to the versioning scheme.  Two usefull
>>  such schemes were described previously in the discussion, where
>>  classes still have increasing integer versions, but are not possible
>>  with 8 bits storage.
>>
>> - what downsides does appying this patch have?  Maybe occuring a
>>  slight overhead on 16-bits platforms?  If true, can this be actually
>>  measured?
>> - Would this patch cause any regression? Break any user code which was
>>  working fine before?  Break user archive backward compatibilty?
>>
>
> Would this not break compatibility with binary_?archive ?
> Currently binary archive stores the version as a 16 bit
> integer. Maybe it wouldn't but it's another thing that would
> have to be considered. Even if it didn't, this would break
> the "guarentee" that any serialization which works for one
> archive class is guarenteed to work with any other one.

I've wondered if Robert deliberately misspells guarantee
in order to emphasize that there is no guarantee.

-- 
Brian Wood
Ebenezer Enterprises
http://www.webEbenezer.net
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