On 2019-04-24 8:39 a.m., Andrzej Krzemienski via Boost wrote:
Hi Everyone, Somewhat in connection with the discussion about modularizing Boost libraries, we had a certain conceptual problem recently about providing a customization code that allows Boost.Serialization library to serialize Boost.Optional. Such customization requires some code to be written (template specializations provided).
It seems intuitive to put such code with Boost.Optional. While you may not want to make Boost.Optional as a whole be dependent on Boost.Serialization, it might be possible to create an "extension" (technically just a header in your case) that encapsulates the additional dependency, and which can be considered logically separate from the "core" of Boost.Optional. I have similar cases where certain Boost libraries wanted Python bindings (using Boost.Python). For example, Boost.MPI has Python bindings, which are however built into a separate library. So, Boost.MPI wouldn't depend on Boost.Python, but the Boost.MPI Python bindings lib would depend on both Boost.MPI and Boost.Python. Your case is similar, only that the piece that depends on both is just a header, rather than a full (compiled) library. Stefan -- ...ich hab' noch einen Koffer in Berlin...