Re: [Boost-users] Serialization newbie needs help

Dominick Layfield wrote:

"Robert Ramey" wrote:

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Actually, I've considered reviewing all the email in this list and summarizing the results in a section "Hints and Troubleshooting Tips". I think this is useful and necessary and useful, but I just havent gotten around to it.

That sounds ideal.

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But if you could provide me an example of when pointer serialization shines, then I would say "Aha! Now I understand why Robert went to so much trouble to make this work.", and I could be at peace with the world again! :-)

LOL - I haven't had time to make any real apps lately.

So... no example at all?

My problem is that I just don't see when pointer serialization would be a big win. But I can't tell if I just have a limited perspective. That's why I was genuinely hoping that you could provide a concrete example.

See http://www.adi.com/products_sim_ad_de.htm. This product maintains numerous connections between model ports. Among numerous other under-the-hood pointers, there are containers of connections which are pairs of boost::shared_ptr<Port>'s. The state of the entire system is saved/loaded to/from file using boost::serialization. This would be undoable without the ability to serialize pointers, and such a facility in my mind could not be called a serialization library. I'm not sure if this is concrete enough for you. But I for the life of me can not see how you could serialize the state of any moderate size system without serializing pointers. Do your applications have no sharing relations? Do they not contain any polymorphic collections? Do they only create items on the stack or in static memory? Jeff Flinn