Serialization

From:
Andrea Crotti <andrea.crotti.0@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Thu, 04 Nov 2010 18:28:24 +0100
Message-ID:
<m1tyjxj8w7.fsf@ip1-201.halifax.rwth-aachen.de>
I'm doing a very complicated structure for serialize/deserialize
objects, in short I have this abstract class

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
#ifndef STREAMABLE_H
#define STREAMABLE_H

#include "Stream.hpp"

template <typename T>
class Serializable
{
public:
    Serializable() {}
    virtual Stream toStream() = 0;
    // used to parse the given stream and create the object
    virtual T parseStream(const Stream&) = 0;
};

#endif /* STREAMABLE_H */
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

and all the objects that want to bea able to create a stream and parse
it have to overload it.

Now 2 problems:
- the definition of the classes is something like
  class PadNodeID : public Serializable<PadNodeID>
  
  so the template parameter is always the class itself, maybe is it
  possible to avoid it?

- the "parseStream" function doesn't really make sense to be called from
  one object, since it's supposed to create one.
  But making it static and virtual doens't work, so how should I declare
  it in such a way that I can do.

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
  Type t = Type::parseStream(st);
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Thanks again,
Andrea

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