Subject: [boost] [serialization] RPC, IDL, XDR
From: remi.chateauneu_at_[hidden]
Date: 2008-10-20 17:40:52
Is there an attempt to use boost::serialization and Sun's XDR routines
to make remote procedure calls with C++ objects? IDL allows only to
serialize plain C variables but it might be possible to wrap elegantly
low-level XDR calls. Something like that:
/// This wraps an XDR pointer into a pseudo-archive.
struct xdr_archive
{
XDR * _xdr_ptr ;
xdr_archive( XDR * xp ) : _xrd_ptr(xp) {};
bool_t operator & ( int & i ) { return xdr_int( _xdr_ptr, & i ); };
bool_t operator & ( float & f ) { return xdr_float( _xdr_ptr, & f ); };
...
}
The advantage of this is that, if a class has a
boost::serialization-compliant 'serialize' method, it becomes easily
usable with RPC. For example:
/// Sample structure/
struct MyStruct
{
int _i ;
float _f ;
template<class Archive >
void /serialize( ///Archive & ar, const unsigned int version) {
ar & _i;
ar & _f;
}
friend void xdr( XDR * xp, MyStruct * sp )
{
s->serialize( xdr_archive( xp ), 0 );
};
};
Although not losing the boolean return value of xdr functions is not
straightforward (exceptions or a data member in xdr_archive ?), I would
like to know whether it makes sense to use 'serialization' this way. The
advantage would be: No need to use an IDL compiler such as rpcgen, less
code maintenance, usability of XDR for C++ objects (not just C).