To my knowledge, S11n expects the code that reads the data to be aware of the exact order, count and types of things in the serialized stream. This means that if you want a sequence of variable length, you need to serialize and deserialize data from which you can derive the extents of the sequence. You might be able to piggyback on existing logic if you put all your objects in a standard library container like a list or vector and serialize _that_. Otherwise, count the objects and write a sized integer denoting the count, or write a sentinel object that you can use to find the end of the sequence. Depending on your actual use case and types involved, one may be easier than the other. -- Lars Viklund | zao@acc.umu.se _______________________________________________ Boost-users mailing list Boost-users@lists.boost.org http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost-users I can't count the object because I don't know how many I'm going to write. I am dumping debug elements as time passes... it it not know a priori how many will get dumped. You are saying, make my OWN EOF class. Yeah, I could do something like that. (why didn't I think of that myself?)