[Boost-users] Serialization newbie, memory being overwritten?

Subject: [Boost-users] Serialization newbie, memory being overwritten?
From: Lasse Laursen (gazoo_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-11-27 00:57:38

Hello to you,

I wonder if you might be able to solve this conundrum I've been 
pondering. The boost (1.51) serialization library is giving me some 
trouble. I've been battling back and forth with the library, and I'm 
beginning to think I'm missing some key element.

At first, I had issues to just getting things written out to a file 
without crashes. As far as I could tell, this particular problem was 
compounded by the fact, that I tried to simplify my code by just writing 
a single primitive referenced by a pointer to an object containing said 
primitive. As I've since come to learn, serializing pointed-to 
primitives is apparently not trivial.

I have since, gotten the serialization class to properly write out a few 
simple member primitives from my class, but when I read them back using 
the exact same function, it seems as though a lot - if not all - of the 
pre-existing data in the object, which I am not serializing, gets 
overwritten.

As far as I have been able to tell from the tutorials, I am doing 
everything exactly by the book. I was also concerned that maybe boost 
doesn't allow partial serialization, but this shouldn't be an issue 
either as far as I can tell. I must be making some sort of colossal 
mistake that I just cannot see.

My in and out code is fairly straight forward:

std::string streamPath = PTMFilePath.string();
std::ifstream ifs(streamPath);
boost::archive::xml_iarchive ia(ifs);

ia >> BOOST_SERIALIZATION_NVP(aStream);

-----

std::string streamPath = PTMFilePath.string();
std::ofstream ofs(streamPath);
boost::archive::xml_oarchive oa(ofs);

oa << BOOST_SERIALIZATION_NVP(aStream);

------

My serialization function:

        template<class Archive>
        void serialize(Archive &ar, const unsigned int file_version)
        {
                ar & BOOST_SERIALIZATION_NVP(nrOfSamples);
        }

------

aStream is a pointer to a custom class, where I have allowed boost 
access. I am really confused as to what is causing this. Both pointed to 
data and regular primitives in the aStream class are wiped/altered as 
soon as the program enteres the serialize function, and even before the 
actual data seems to be read.

I must be overlooking something really basic here. I hope someone can 
whack me with the solution stick...

Thanks,
Lasse