Is there an easy way to serialize into a in-memory archive so that an object can be, say, transferred over a network? Of course one can use a disk file as the intermediate step but having some in-memory archive should help here. Actually, as a related question, is there a way to serialize into and deserialize from some map-like in-memory archive? Just to illustrate the idea better, say we have a Point class. class Point { double m_x, m_y; public: Point(double x, double y): m_x(x), m_y(y) {} }; We can use the constructor Point(1.0, 2.0) to get an object. But how about if we want to construct a Point object from a std::map that has "x => 1.0; y=> 2.0" as its key-value pairs? I guess my example is too simple so that deserializing from a map is not necessary. But consider deserializing from a database, where one natural way to present the information is not a long binary string but a list of key-value pairs. Or consider a generic factory that takes in such a map and gives out a constructed object. Note that a map usually doesn't keep entries in order so this may add extra burden to the serializing code. Please let me know if what I am looking for is too crazy. Any input is appreciated.