Hi, I'm trying to find out if boost::serialization can be used in real-time applications to stream data into a fifo to another process. It is mandatory that no memory allocations happen during the serialization. I tested this with a std::vector<double> of 10 elements in combination with the boost::iostreams library. The aim is that all memory allocations happen during construction of the archive object, while the serialisation itself causes none. <code> #include <boost/archive/binary_oarchive.hpp> #include <boost/serialization/vector.hpp> #include <boost/iostreams/stream.hpp> #include <boost/iostreams/device/array.hpp> namespace io = boost::iostreams; int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { vector<double> d(10, 1.1); char sink[1000]; memset( sink, 0, 1000); io::stream<io::array_sink> out(sink,1000); boost::archive::binary_oarchive oa(out); //oa << d; // should not allocate return 0; } </code> The setup code does 10 memory allocations according to valgrind: ==12995== ERROR SUMMARY: 0 errors from 0 contexts (suppressed: 8 from 1) ==12995== malloc/free: in use at exit: 0 bytes in 0 blocks. ==12995== malloc/free: 10 allocs, 10 frees, 913 bytes allocated. ==12995== For counts of detected errors, rerun with: -v ==12995== All heap blocks were freed -- no leaks are possible. If we uncomment 'oa << d' we get 2 more (unwanted) allocations: ==13010== ERROR SUMMARY: 0 errors from 0 contexts (suppressed: 8 from 1) ==13010== malloc/free: in use at exit: 0 bytes in 0 blocks. ==13010== malloc/free: 12 allocs, 12 frees, 1,001 bytes allocated. ==13010== For counts of detected errors, rerun with: -v ==13010== All heap blocks were freed -- no leaks are possible I'm guessing that the 2 allocations in the serialisation path come from a temporay std::string object, when writing the 'serialization::archive' string into the archive. Wouldn't it be possible to rewrite this library code as such that there are no allocations / strings created ? A similar pattern is observed for deserializing: 2 allocs in the serialisation path. Peter PS: I tried to find out who defines the macro BOOST_ARCHIVE_SIGNATURE() but I couldn't find the definition/#define !?