[Boost-users] sending large serialized objects over network using MPI

Subject: [Boost-users] sending large serialized objects over network using MPI
From: Jonathan Bishop (jbishop.rwc_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-10-28 12:27:04

HI,

I am involved in a project which requires the transport of large C++
instances over MPI communication channels. I am using boost serialization to
pack and unpack the objects into a buffer. The whole buffer is sent in one
shot.

Of course for large objects this can be problematic. I have two questions...

1) is there any way to tell beforehand how large the buffer needs to be? In
other words, can you run serialization in a counting only mode?
2) is there an archive implemented which streams across MPI communication
channels (not sure this is the right terminology.)? Seems like it might be
useful. This might be a better question for the boost MPI team, though.

Thanks,

Jon