Hi, I use xml_woarchive and xml_wiarchive for reading/writing configuration files. It seems work work well for me, but now I'd like to see if I can do more with it... is it possible to load an XML serialized file, but completely IGNORE a subtree of the XML file if desired? eg template <class Archive> void load( Archive & ar, MyConfig & c, const unsigned int version ) { ar >> make_nvp("standard",c.standard); if (some_global_flag_or_whatever) ar >> make_nvp("advanced", c.advanced); else ar.skip("advanced"); // key bit } The motivation is that I want to "register modules" (in my app) that can read/write their configuration in an XML configuration file. But if the module is not registered, I want to skip that part of the configuration file and move on. I figure since the XML format is like a tree, it might/should be possible to ignore an entire segment of the tree. Is it possible? In a related note, the "class_id" bits in xml archives seems to make it difficult for users to hand-edit the XML file... Are these tags required? thanks, Paul