Dear all, I have been experimenting with the boost serialization library. The working environment is Cygwin + gcc3.4.4 + boost_1_33. I creat the following program, the data structure is about electric circuits. The data is saved successfully, but the loadded data is wrong, some pointers in the Wire objects points to invalid address. While when I compile and run it in another machine (Linux + gcc4.1.1 + boost_1_33_1), it works properly. I wonder if it is a compiler compatibility problem or there is something wrong in my program. #ifndef CIRCUIT_H_ #define CIRCUIT_H_ #include <ostream> #include <string> #include <vector> #include <boost/archive/xml_iarchive.hpp> #include <boost/archive/xml_oarchive.hpp> #include <boost/serialization/base_object.hpp> #include <boost/serialization/vector.hpp> #include <boost/serialization/nvp.hpp> class Pin { std::string parent; int index; friend std::ostream& operator<< (std::ostream& os, const Pin& pin); friend class boost::serialization::access; template<class Archive> void serialize(Archive & ar, const unsigned int version) { ar & BOOST_SERIALIZATION_NVP(parent) & BOOST_SERIALIZATION_NVP (index); } public: Pin(std::string p="", int i=0) : parent(p), index(i) {} }; class Wire { Pin* source; Pin* sink; friend std::ostream& operator<< (std::ostream& os, const Wire& wire); friend class boost::serialization::access; template<class Archive> void serialize(Archive & ar, const unsigned int version) { ar & BOOST_SERIALIZATION_NVP(source) & BOOST_SERIALIZATION_NVP(sink); } public: Wire(Pin* src=0, Pin* snk=0) : source(src), sink(snk) {} }; class Block { protected: std::string name; std::vector<Pin*> pins; Block() {} virtual std::ostream& print(std::ostream& os) const; friend std::ostream& operator<< (std::ostream& os, const Block& blk); friend class boost::serialization::access; template<class Archive> void serialize(Archive & ar, const unsigned int version ) { ar & BOOST_SERIALIZATION_NVP(name) & BOOST_SERIALIZATION_NVP (pins); } public: Block(std::string n, int np) : name(n), pins(np) { for (int i=0; i<np; i++) pins[i] = new Pin(n, i); } virtual ~Block() { for (int i=0; i<pins.size(); i++) delete pins [i]; } Pin* get_pin(int i) { return pins[i]; } std::string get_name() { return name; } virtual std::ostream& print_recursive(std::ostream& os) const { return print(os); } }; class Circuit : public Block { protected: std::vector<Block*> children; std::vector<Wire*> wires; std::ostream& print(std::ostream& os) const; friend class boost::serialization::access; template<class Archive> void serialize(Archive & ar, const unsigned int version) { ar.register_type(static_cast<Circuit *>(NULL)); ar & BOOST_SERIALIZATION_BASE_OBJECT_NVP(Block); ar & BOOST_SERIALIZATION_NVP(children) & BOOST_SERIALIZATION_NVP(wires); } public: Circuit() : Block() {} Circuit(std::string name, int np) : Block(name, np) { } void add_block(Block& b) { children.push_back(&b); } void add_wire(Wire& w) { wires.push_back(&w); } std::ostream& print_recursive(std::ostream& os) const; }; std::ostream& operator<< (std::ostream& os, const Pin& pin); std::ostream& operator<< (std::ostream& os, const Wire& wire); std::ostream& operator<< (std::ostream& os, const Block& blk); #endif /*CIRCUIT_H_*/ // main.cpp #include <iostream> #include <fstream> #include "circuit.h" void save_circuit(const Circuit& c, const char * filename) { std::ofstream ofs(filename); boost::archive::xml_oarchive oa(ofs); oa << BOOST_SERIALIZATION_NVP(c); } void load_circuit(Circuit& c, const char * filename) { std::ifstream ifs(filename); boost::archive::xml_iarchive ia(ifs); ia >> BOOST_SERIALIZATION_NVP(c); } int main() { Circuit pe1("pe1",5); Circuit top("top", 4); top.add_block(pe1); Wire w6(top.get_pin(0), pe1.get_pin(0)); Wire w7(top.get_pin(1), pe1.get_pin(1)); Wire w8(pe1.get_pin(4), top.get_pin(2)); top.add_wire(w6); top.add_wire(w7); top.add_wire(w8); top.print_recursive(std::cout); save_circuit(top, "circuit.xml"); Circuit top2; load_circuit(top2, "circuit.xml"); top2.print_recursive(std::cout); } There is another problem, when I inlined the 'save' and 'load' function, the following error occured, and the data couldn't be saved. terminate called after throwing an instance of 'boost::archive::xml_archive_exception' what(): unrecognized XML syntax Aborted The program is listed here: int main() { // ... ... // prepare data std::ofstream ofs("circuit.xml"); boost::archive::xml_oarchive oa(ofs); oa << BOOST_SERIALIZATION_NVP(top); Circuit top2; std::ifstream ifs("circuit.xml"); boost::archive::xml_iarchive ia(ifs); ia >> BOOST_SERIALIZATION_NVP(top2); top2.print_recursive(std::cout); } The error occured on both machine. Could anyone explain what's the difference between the two programs. Best regards, Roger Zhou