Re: [Boost-users] load a serialized object into Matlab?

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] load a serialized object into Matlab?
From: Daniel Herring (dherring_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-10-26 15:18:02

On Tue, 26 Oct 2010, Jesse Perla wrote:

> James C. Sutherland <James.Sutherland <at> utah.edu> writes:
>
>> On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 3:27 PM, Daniel Herring <dherring <at> ll.mit.edu> 
>> wrote:Isn't matlab capable of reading hdf5 files? Â That might be a reasonable 
>> target for boost::serialization.
>
> This was discussed briefly on the ublas list.  Someone also told us that
> boost::serialization is really not meant for proprietary file formats.

While boost::serialization prefers its own file format, HDF5 is a very 
open standard.

"The HDF5 data model, file format, API, library, and tools are open and 
distributed without charge."
http://www.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/whatishdf5.html

I understand that a full C++ object to HDF5 mapping is hard (I looked at 
the problem myself), but the format should not be dismissed lightly.  In 
fact, I mentioned it as a possible format for matlab explicitly because it 
is a growing standard in scientific computing, whereas other matlab 
interfaces are vendor-specific.

See for example
http://www.hdfgroup.org/products/hdf5_tools/

The recent discussion about boost::mpi reawakened my interest in such a 
possibility...  boost::hdf5?

A full binding would be hard; but a binding sufficient for one or two 
datatype might not be.

- Daniel