Re: [Boost-users] [Serialization] How do I make boost::serializationwork with std::shared_ptr?

On Sun, Sep 29, 2013 at 3:58 PM, Arman Schwarz wrote:

On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 6:48 AM, Robert Ramey wrote:

...

[...] This was OK .... until now when we have a new shared_ptr to deal with. The real solution is to enhance the serialization API so that the code used for implementing boost::shared_ptr can be applied to other data types which are otherwise unserializable. Unfortunately, this is a non-trivial task which I have yet to get to. So for now I can't offer a real solution other than suggesting one use boost shared pointer rather than std::shared_ptr. I dont' know if this helps - but there it is.

No, this helps a lot. I've switched to boost::shared_ptr and everything seems to work.

Reading the documentation, I didn't immediately notice that boost/serialization/shared_ptr.hpp was a specialization for the boost shared pointers, not those of the standard library. This lead to my confusion.

I remember Peter Dimov making the point that std::shared_ptr needs serialization too, and that it is incorrect for Boost Serialization to get special access to boost::shared_ptr. But here we are. Also keep in mind that in the general case shared_ptr is not serializable. For example, you can't serialize shared_ptr<int> which was created by aliasing from a shared_ptr<foo>. In most usual cases of course it can be serialized non-intrusively. -- Emil Dotchevski Reverge Studios, Inc. http://www.revergestudios.com/reblog/index.php?n=ReCode