[Boost-users] [serialization] performance issue when deserializing long string in a xml file

Subject: [Boost-users] [serialization] performance issue when deserializing long string in a xml file
From: jean-charles.quillet_at_[hidden]
Date: 2012-12-11 12:12:18

Hello,

Since I discovered the boost serialization library, I'm using it in every single project 
I'm working on. I just cant figure how I was doing before. Makes life so much easier.

I usually serialize all my objects in XML format. On my current project, I have a couple 
of big 500x500 complex matrices (ublas) that need to be serialized in my files. 

Serializing the matrices with the default boost functions results quite big files. So I've 
implemented the following:

- I serialize the matrix in memory in binary format
- I compress the data with the zlib
- I encode the resulting data in base64 then copy it in a string
- And I serialize the resulting string in my file

It's working great but I've found out that deserializing this long string takes a huge amount 
of time. It bothers me and I don't really understand why. As I've got a filter reporting the bytes 
read to watch the progress. It seems that the time is spent after that all data has been read !
It confuses me.

Has anybody experienced this or have any idea to solve my problem ?
Thanks,

Jean-Charles