On 8/21/2011 6:35 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
On 8/21/11 1:19 PM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
On 2011-08-21 17:30, Robert Clipsham wrote:
On 21/08/2011 16:05, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
This is for a serialization library where third party types need to be
serializable. I don't like the idea of annotate everything that should
be serializable.
You don't need to annotate it:
void serialize(T)(T something);
You have access to all the CT reflection stuff, and can generate the
necessary runtime reflection with that.
I already have a fully working serialization library. I'm hoping to make
it better. The problem is when (de)serializing through a base class
reference. Currently you need to register the subclass with the
serializer. If T is Base and the actually runtime type is Sub it won't
work.
If we get to the point where adding one line of code inside or
(preferably) outside a type to make it serializable, that would be great.
Andrei
I've been playing with Jacob's code and we're already at that point.
Example (requires Jacob's Orange library to be installed):
import std.stdio, orange.serialization._, orange.serialization.archives._,
std.exception;
class Base {
string baseString;
}
class Derived : Base {
string derivedString;
}
void main() {
auto archiver = new XMLArchive!char();
auto serializer = new Serializer(archiver);
serializer.register!Derived();
auto derived = new Derived;
derived.baseString = "Base";
derived.derivedString = "Derived";
Base baseRef = derived;
auto serialized = serializer.serialize(baseRef);
auto baseRef2 = serializer.deserialize!(Base)(serialized);
enforce(baseRef2.classinfo is Derived.classinfo);
auto derived2 = cast(Derived) baseRef;
writeln(derived2.baseString, ' ', derived2.derivedString);
}
The registration is not even necessary if you're serializing a class
with a compile time type identical to its runtime type. Of course the
situation gets a little more complicated when classes have references to
other classes (you need to register everything that could be
transitively reachable) but it's still pretty good.
