command pattern serialization in c++

Question

I want to do the folloing in C++:

1. create a command object
2. serialize it
3. (send it to another computer)
4. deserialize
5. execute

Two cases:

• sender and receiver are both win 7 computers
• sender is *nix and receiver is win 7

I found a tutorial for searialization: http://www.functionx.com/cpp/articles/serialization.htm. Is this the way to go? In python I could do:

def setAndPackCommand(self, object):
    outFile = StringIO.StringIO()
    pickledC = pickle.dump(object, outFile) # this packs object to outFile
    stringToSend = outFile.getvalue() # decoding to string

def unpackAndExecute(self, stringToReceive):
    inFile = StringIO.StringIO()
    inFile.write(stringToReceive)
    inFile.seek(0, 0)
    receivedC = pickle.load(inFile)     
    receivedC.execute()

In this code the main point are pickle.dump and pickle.load. What are the C++ counterparts? Wikipedia says that c++ does not support serialization? What is the link above then?

What does binary serialization mean? memory is dumped to disk and deserialization needs exactly the same computer (no cross-platform transfers)?

br, Juha

Answer 1

I would also recommend using a stable library like boost.serialization for serializing data.

If you are new to serialization, it means transforming objects into a data representation suitable for transmission or storage and rebuilding them from that data representation. The difficulty is not really big with so-called PODs (Plain Old Data objects). You can transmit the buffer as data and cast it back after the transfer by taking care of the data alignment and byte ordering (endianness). It becomes more complicated if objects reference other objects, and then it makes really sense to use a well designed library. Boost's serialization also supports versionning so you can update your format and keep up and backward compatible readers and writers (with some effort of course)

Here is a good introduction.