[Boost-users] [serialization] customizing save/load for a type (pointer)

Subject: [Boost-users] [serialization] customizing save/load for a type (pointer)
From: Mathieu Champlon (m.champlon_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-10-17 01:28:27

Hi,

I'm using Boost.Serialization on a project where part of the data is not 
serialized and then loaded separately when unserializing.
For instance a class MyThing can have a member data MyThingData* which 
described some "static" data.
There is an application which edits these data and saves them on file 
for the main application to use latter on.

When serializing MyThing we customize save/load in order to serialize 
MyThingData as a UID (MyThingData has a GetId member function).
Upon unserialization the proper MyThingData instance is searched for 
based on the UID read from the archive.

This works OK but is a bit tedious because with

     class MyThing
     {
         ...
         MyThingData* data_;
     };

instead of simply doing

     template< typename Archive > void serialize( Archive& ar, const 
unsigned int )
     {
         ar & data_;
     }

we have to do something like

     BOOST_SERIALIZATION_SPLIT_MEMBER()
     template< typename Archive > void load( Archive& ar, const unsigned 
int )
     {
         int id;
         ar >> id;
         data_ = FindData( id ); // not very important how it is 
actually retrieved
     }
     template< typename Archive > void save( Archive& ar, const unsigned 
int ) const
     {
         ar << data_->GetId();
     }

Moreover things get even more complicated when serializing for instance 
a std::vector< MyThingData* > ...

So I'm looking for a way to customize the serialization of MyThingData*.
Of course I could wrap MyThingData* in a simple object to encapsulate 
save/load but they're everywhere and the code base is quite massive so 
this would require a lot of changes.

Any idea how I could achieve this ?

Thank you !

Regards,
MAT.