I think the best way to handle this is by making an archive helper. If you look into the implemenation of ..._oarchive, you'll see that it looks something like the following: class xml_oarchive : public naked_xml_oarchive, shared_ptr_helper {... This is to implement special facility for shared_ptr which would otherwise not be serializable. (note: this is the only case where the archive classes address issues related to the implemenation of a particular type). You could do something similar for your own "special" type. Look in the documentaion under "case studies" for a more complete explanation. Robert Ramey Kenny Riddile wrote:
I have a situation where I want an additional piece of data to be owned by the archive type we're using. Previously, I had this typedef that's used throughout our code:
typedef boost::archive::xml_iarchive IutputArchive;
I changed it to something like this:
class InputArchive : public boost::archive::xml_iarchive { public: InputArchive( std::istream& is, Foo bar ) : boost::archive::xml_iarchive( is ) , m_bar( bar )
Foo GetFoo() const { return m_bar; }
private: Foo m_bar; };
The problem I'm seeing is that whenever a serializable class's serialize() method is invoked via an InputArchive object, the template parameter to serialize() is instantiated with boost::archive::xml_iarchive, not InputArchive, which I need. Is it possible to get the behavior I want through public derivation like this, or is there a better way?