[Boost-users] binary streams?

I'm wondering whether boost has binary streams (or whether the standard library does and i missed it). I had a quick look at boost serialisation. looks like it maybe too involved for my needs. my only needs would be something as follows: outstream s; s << (int)3; s << (float)4.0; s << std::string("hello"); void* data = s.buffer(); int size = s.size(); instream s(data, size); int a << s; float b << s; std::string b << s; I plan on sending the data over TCP. Portability would also be handy (ie endian issues). I may use asio when it is avail in the next boost release. does that support binary streams?