Robert Ramey wrote:
Peter Dimov wrote:
The author of boost::shared_ptr wants to, but it isn't straightforward and will take time; and you aren't helping me much, I might add.
Hmmm I understood that you didn't want to include serialization inside the implementation of shared_ptr but had insisted on and totally non-intrusive one which depended only on public interface of shared_ptr. That's what I was refering to.
Yes, I still want to use only the public interface of shared_ptr in its serialization. This will allow people to use the same serialization algorithm with tr1::shared_ptr.
Your other suggestion was "add a serialize member to shared_ptr and just make it work." This is easier said than done. The serialization library is fairly complex and figuring out the best way to extend it non-intrusively with the necessary support requires more time than I have at the moment.
Welcome to the club.
Good point. (apologies for quoting out of order)
I never failed to see your point - I just never really saw an attractive resolution. Lacking such a resolution - I've "made it work" which is more than anyone else has done.
I've attached my current draft version. The top part is the shared_ptr serialization support, the rest (after namespace boost is closed) is a simple test. It uses the ordinary BOOST_CLASS_EXPORT_GUID mechanism for class registration, but serialization via a base class requires an additional step: register_conversion<base, derived>(); at the top of main.cpp. The main thing that makes this a draft and not a production version are the two global std::map objects at the top, sp_save_map and sp_load_map. These need to be injected into the archive. The register_conversion step cannot be eliminated without adding specific shared_ptr support to the serialization library; its void_cast mechanism cannot be used to upcast a shared_ptr to shared_ptr. When I wrote the code I intended to provide a mechanism to inject the pointer maps into the archive types via inheritance. Then I ran out of time. So, basically, the only thing that remains to be done is a mechanism to inject sp_load_map into an iarchive, and sp_save_map into an oarchive. If you have (or anyone else has) an easy solution to this problem, that would be great.