From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2019-12-08 16:55:43
On 12/8/19 7:48 AM, Peter Dimov via Boost wrote:
> As I already stated in a previous message, if your reader can only read
> what your writer writes, your format is JSON in name only. A "real" JSON
> reader must be able to read not just the literal output of the writer,
> but a modified JSON file that is (per spec) equivalent to the original.
By that definition the XML serialization implemented in the Boost
Serialization is not a "real" XML reader. So what. No serialization
library can claim to be able to read arbitrary input and automatically
map it so some pre-determined C++ data structure.
If someone is interested in a JSON format for boost serialization, he
can use the current XML setup as a model. If one feels that the current
XML implementation is not a "real" parser - that's OK too. I do get a
complaint from time to time that XML archive cannot be freely edited -
but not by anyone who understands the inherent limitations of what a C++
serialization can do.
> Which includes reordered fields, as you yourself wrote in the very
> previous paragraph.
>
>> Firstly, JSON Object is unordered, so any key permutation is a valid
>> syntax. ECMA-404 is quite explicit about this.
And for those who might want a system of editable archives - there's
another good model: Google protocol buffers. That might be a system
where one describes a data structure in terms of some JSON primitives
and the user uses a parser to pick this apart to build his C++ data
structure and maintains this coupling as time goes on. This might be a
viable, and/or interesting system, but it's unrelated to what Boost
serialization currently is and has been for 15 years.
Robert Ramey