Emil Dotchevski writes:

On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 5:05 AM, Bilokon, Paul wrote:

...

The current approach requires some code duplication. We have to declare a field. We have to manually (de)serialise it. If we need to make a change, we make it in at least two distinct places.

You are thinking in terms of reflection. Think in terms of states and invariants and it'll make more sense. For example, if you have an array of items and a pointer, and your invariant is that the pointer always points the last element in the array, the pointer should not be serialized.

I don't know if that is a common situation, but there are two ways to handle that with the C++ Middleware Writer. One as I mentioned in another post is to turn off the automatic generation of marshalling functions. The other is to place those fields which shouldn't be included in the marshalling process within an #ifdef SERVER_SIDE -- http://webEbenezer.net/ifdefSERVER.html . The macro is turned on when servers are built and off when clients are built. This approach enables servers to have a complete view of a type and clients to have an accurate, but limited view of the same type. Regards, Brian Wood http://www.webEbenezer.net http://www.webebenezer.net/ "Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, so far the the L-RD has helped us."