Stefan Strasser writes:

that's the same approach. code seems to be written by an external code generator instead of a c++ compiler, but there is no difference beyond that, is there? .NET for example implements serialization based on its reflection mechanism. it iterates at runtime through the (reflected) fields of a class and extracts the data. I don't think an external code generator is "cleaner".

I don't claim that an external code generator is cleaner, but that the Ebenezer approach is cleaner, since it (usually) writes marshalling functions at build time. C++ compilers should have been able to do that for 10 years now, but for whatever reason that isn't being developed. Regards, Brian Wood http://webEbenezer.net <http://webebenezer.net/> "Then Samuel took a rock and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer [Rock of Help] and said, 'Until now the L-RD has helped us.'"