This thread seems to be a bit old... but I also would like to serialize iterators. Of course it would be possible to work around the lack of serialization for iterators, but I'm not sure how to achieve this efficiently for BIG maps where the whassit... data which isn't the key... is an iterator. I tried writing the functions myself but I'm not sure how to get around: /usr/include/boost/archive/detail/oserializer.hpp:564: error: invalid application of ‘sizeof’ to incomplete type ‘boost::STATIC_ASSERTION_FAILURE<false>’ :working: [ yes, I did see the comments in the code about not trying to serialize a "track_never" object through a pointer, nor saving a non-const object which is not "track_never"... i.e., if you serialize a pointer it must not be "track_never", but if you serialize a non-const object it must be "track_never"... is that right? I think I might have to const_cast the iterator data, but the funny thing is, my serialization functions raise this static assertion even when they are nops. ] Anyway, this seems like a really useful thing to have if you are using the STL. I think it should be possible to do it non-intrusively... isn't there a mighty boost guru somewhere to take up the challenge? -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Design-for-boost%3A%3Aserialization-of-STL-iterators.-... Sent from the Boost - Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.