I'd like to use the boost::serialization library to generate XML that must be read by a third party application. Unfortunately, this application does not like the extra stuff that the serialization library generates. The code below generates XML that looks like this: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?> <!DOCTYPE boost_serialization> <boost_serialization signature="serialization::archive" version="5"> <MYTAG class_id="0" tracking_level="0" version="0"></MYTAG> </boost_serialization> What I need is XML that looks more like this: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?> <MYTAG></MYTAG> What can I do to eliminate the extra stuff? Thanks, PaulH class MyClass { private: friend class boost::serialization::access; template<class Archive> void serialize(Archive &ar, const unsigned int version){}; public: MyClass(){}; friend std::ostream & operator<<(std::ostream &os, const MyClass &gp); virtual ~MyClass(){}; }; int main( int argc, _TCHAR* argv[] ) { MyClass mc; std::ofstream ofs("MyFile.xml"); boost::archive::xml_oarchive oa(ofs); oa << boost::serialization::make_nvp( "MYTAG", mc ); return 0; }