Hello everybody, I defined the following objects to be serialized: class MyElementObject { friend class boost::serialization::access; public: template<class Archive> void serialize(Archive & ar, const unsigned int version) { } }; template<class T> class MyRecursiveObject { friend class boost::serialization::access; public: T element; std::vector<MyRecursiveObject<T> > children; template<class Archive> void serialize(Archive & ar, const unsigned int version) { ar & element; ar & children; } }; I then run the following code: int main() { //MyRecursiveObject initialization MyRecursiveObject<MyElementObject> rec_object; rec_object.children.push_back(MyRecursiveObject<MyElementObject>()); rec_object.children[0].children.push_back(MyRecursiveObject<MyElementObject>()); //create vector of pointers to MyRecursiveObject's elements vector<MyElementObject *> elt_ptrs; elt_ptrs.push_back(&rec_object.element); elt_ptrs.push_back(&rec_object.children[0].element); elt_ptrs.push_back(&rec_object.children[0].children[0].element); //serialize MyRecursiveObject and the vector of pointers { ofstream ofs("filename"); boost::archive::text_oarchive oa(ofs); oa << rec_object; oa << elt_ptrs; } //create new MyRecursiveObject and vector of pointers for deserialization MyRecursiveObject<MyElementObject> rec_object_deserialized; rec_object_deserialized.children.push_back(MyRecursiveObject<MyElementObject>()); rec_object_deserialized.children[0].children.push_back(MyRecursiveObject<MyElementObject>()); vector<MyElementObject *> elt_ptrs_deserialized; //deserialize { ifstream ifs("filename"); boost::archive::text_iarchive ia(ifs); ia >> rec_object_deserialized; ia >> elt_ptrs_deserialized; } //compare deserialized pointers cout<<"elt_ptrs first level="<<elt_ptrs_deserialized[0] <<" expected="<<&rec_object_deserialized.element<<endl; cout<<"elt_ptrs second level="<<elt_ptrs_deserialized[1] <<" expected="<<&rec_object_deserialized.children[0].element<<endl; cout<<"elt_ptrs third level="<<elt_ptrs_deserialized[2] <<" expected="<<&rec_object_deserialized.children[0].children[0].element<<endl; return 0; } And I always get an output similar to the following one: elt_ptrs first level=<b>0x7fff57c787c0* expected=*0x7fff57c787c0* elt_ptrs second level=*0x18e7020* expected=*0x18e7020* elt_ptrs third level=*0xffff8000ab5564f0* expected=*0x18e7450* As can be seen from the output I manage to deserialize pointers that point to elements down to the second recursion level of MyRecursiveObject. As soon as I try to do it with pointers to the third level or even deeper the deserialization fails. Am I using boost::serialization wrongly? Note that the MyRecursiveObject is always successfully deserialized, no matter how many levels it has. I encounter the problem only deserializing pointers to its elements. Thank you in advance Kean -- View this message in context: http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/serialization-of-recursive-objects-tp4639... Sent from the Boost - Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.