Re: [Boost-users] [Boost.MPI] question about serializingcustomobject

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] [Boost.MPI] question about serializingcustomobject
From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-08-27 18:38:19

Matthias Troyer wrote:
> On 27 Aug 2010, at 23:53, Robert Ramey wrote:
> What happens is that when using the skeleton&contents mechanism the
> serialized data is split into two parts: all the "structural" data
> (the skeleton), such as version, object id, class name .... is
> serialized into a buffer as the skeleton, and all the "normal" data
> members are used to create an MPI data type. You might argue that
> this second one actually turns racking off.

OK - this seems to make more sense now

> The nicest thing, however, is that these two "archives" are both
> created only once. The MPI datatype created for the contents is then
> used many times, and all of work there is done by MPI and the network
> hardware without needed the serialization library anymore.

I might mention - though it's slightly off topic - that a similar idea
occurred to me with the xml_archive so that when one created
an xml_archive he would have the option of simultaneously creating
a xml_schema which could be used by an xml_editor to create/validate
changes to the archive.  I never acted on this idea since I've always
had  other stuff that interested me more and I'm not convinced that
there would be demand for it.

I'm aware that some work has to be done to make the library
more usable for those making archives.  I'm sort of surprised at
how few questions I get about this.  I'm presuming that the
number of users making archives is extremely small - at least
in comparison to those using archives. I don't think it's because
making an archive class is all that straight forward.

> Matthias