Is it possible to serialize and deserialize a class in C

Question

Is it possible to serialize and deserialize a class in C     I ve been using Java for 3 years now  and serialization   deserialization is fairly trivial in that language  Does C   have similar features  Are there native libraries that handle serialization   An example would be helpful

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I realize this is an old post but it s one of the first that comes up when searching for c   serialization   I encourage anyone who has access to C  11 to take a look at cereal  a C  11 header only library for serialization that supports binary  JSON  and XML out of the box   cereal was designed to be easy to extend and use and has a similar syntax to Boost

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You can check the amef protocol  an example of C   encoding in amef would be like         Create a new AMEF object     AMEFObject  object   new AMEFObject           Add a child string object     object- gt addPacket  This is the Automated Message Exchange Format Object property     adasd              Add a child integer object     object- gt addPacket 21213          Add a child boolean object     object- gt addPacket true        AMEFObject  object2   new AMEFObject        string j    This is the property of a nested Automated Message Exchange Format Object       object2- gt addPacket j       object2- gt addPacket 134123       object2- gt addPacket false          Add a child character object     object2- gt addPacket  d           Add a child AMEF Object     object- gt addPacket object2          Encode the AMEF obejct     string str   new AMEFEncoder  - gt encode object false     Decoding in java would be like       string arr   amef encoded byte array value      AMEFDecoder decoder   new AMEFDecoder       AMEFObject object1   AMEFDecoder decode arr true     The Protocol implementation has codecs for both C   and Java  the interesting part is it can retain object class representation in the form of name value pairs  I required a similar protocol in my last project  when i incidentally stumbled upon this protocol  i had actually modified the base library according to my requirements  Hope this helps you

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I suggest looking into Abstract factories which is often used as a basis for serialization  I have answered in another SO question about C   factories  Please see there if a flexible factory is of interest  I try to describe an old way from ET   to use macros which has worked great for me   ET   was a project to port old MacApp to C   and X11  In the effort of it Eric Gamma etc started to think about Design Patterns  ET   contained automatic ways for serialization and introspection at runtime

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I suggest looking into Abstract factories which is often used as a basis for serialization  I have answered in another SO question about C   factories  Please see there if a flexible factory is of interest  I try to describe an old way from ET   to use macros which has worked great for me   ET   was a project to port old MacApp to C   and X11  In the effort of it Eric Gamma etc started to think about Design Patterns  ET   contained automatic ways for serialization and introspection at runtime

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If you want simple and best performance and don t care about backward data compatibility  try HPS  it s lightweight  much faster than Boost  etc  and much easier to use than Protobuf  etc   Example   std  vector lt int gt  data  22  333  -4444    std  string serialized   hps  serialize to string data   auto parsed   hps  parse from string lt std  vector lt int gt  gt  serialized

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Here is a simple serializer library I knocked up  It s header only  c11 and has examples for serializing basic types  Here s one for a map to class   https   github com goblinhack simple-c-plus-plus-serializer   include  c plus plus serializer h   class Custom   public      int a      std  string b      std  vector c       friend std  ostream amp  operator lt  lt  std  ostream  amp out                                       Bits my                out  lt  lt  bits my t a   lt  lt  bits my t b   lt  lt  bits my t c           return  out              friend std  istream amp  operator gt  gt  std  istream  amp in                                       Bits my                in  gt  gt  bits my t a   gt  gt  bits my t b   gt  gt  bits my t c           return  in              friend std  ostream amp  operator lt  lt  std  ostream  amp out                                       class Custom  amp my                out  lt  lt   a    lt  lt  my a  lt  lt    b    lt  lt  my b           out  lt  lt    c     lt  lt  my c size    lt  lt    elems             for  auto v   my c                out  lt  lt  v  lt  lt                         out  lt  lt  std  endl           return  out             static void save map key string value custom  const std  string filename        std  cout  lt  lt   save to    lt  lt  filename  lt  lt  std  endl      std  ofstream out filename  std  ios  binary         std  map lt  std  string  class Custom  gt  m       auto c1   Custom        c1 a   1      c1 b    hello       std  initializer list L1     vec-elem1    vec-elem2        std  vector l1 L1       c1 c   l1       auto c2   Custom        c2 a   2      c2 b    there       std  initializer list L2     vec-elem3    vec-elem4        std  vector l2 L2       c2 c   l2       m insert std  make pair std  string  key1    c1        m insert std  make pair std  string  key2    c2         out  lt  lt  bits m      static void load map key string value custom  const std  string filename        std  cout  lt  lt   read from    lt  lt  filename  lt  lt  std  endl      std  ifstream in filename        std  map lt  std  string  class Custom  gt  m       in  gt  gt  bits m       std  cout  lt  lt  std  endl       std  cout  lt  lt   m      lt  lt  m size    lt  lt    list-elems      lt  lt  std  endl      for  auto i   m            std  cout  lt  lt           lt  lt  i first  lt  lt          lt  lt  i second            std  cout  lt  lt       lt  lt  std  endl     void map custom class example  void        std  cout  lt  lt   map key string  value class   lt  lt  std  endl      std  cout  lt  lt                                  lt  lt  std  endl      save map key string value custom std  string  map of custom class bin         load map key string value custom std  string  map of custom class bin         std  cout  lt  lt  std  endl      Output   map key string  value class                              save to map of custom class bin read from map of custom class bin  m   2 list-elems        key1    a 1 b hello c  2 elems  vec-elem1 vec-elem2      key2    a 2 b there c  2 elems  vec-elem3 vec-elem4

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Sweet Persist is another one   It is possible to serialize to and from streams in XML  JSON  Lua  and binary formats

User · Answer

Boost  serialization is a great option  but I ve encountered a new project  Cereal which I find much more elegant  I highly suggest investigating it

User · Answer

As far as  built-in  libraries go  the  lt  lt  and  gt  gt  have been reserved specifically for serialization   You should override  lt  lt  to output your object to some serialization context  usually an iostream  and  gt  gt  to read data back from that context  Each object is responsible for outputting its aggregated child objects   This method works fine so long as your object graph contains no cycles   If it does  then you will have to use a library to deal with those cycles

User · Answer

I recommend Google protocol buffers  I had the chance to test drive the library on a new project and it s remarkably easy to use  The library is heavily optimized for performance   Protobuf is different than other serialization solutions mentioned here in the sense that it does not serialize your objects  but rather generates code for objects that are serialization according to your specification

User · Answer

You can check the amef protocol  an example of C   encoding in amef would be like         Create a new AMEF object     AMEFObject  object   new AMEFObject           Add a child string object     object- gt addPacket  This is the Automated Message Exchange Format Object property     adasd              Add a child integer object     object- gt addPacket 21213          Add a child boolean object     object- gt addPacket true        AMEFObject  object2   new AMEFObject        string j    This is the property of a nested Automated Message Exchange Format Object       object2- gt addPacket j       object2- gt addPacket 134123       object2- gt addPacket false          Add a child character object     object2- gt addPacket  d           Add a child AMEF Object     object- gt addPacket object2          Encode the AMEF obejct     string str   new AMEFEncoder  - gt encode object false     Decoding in java would be like       string arr   amef encoded byte array value      AMEFDecoder decoder   new AMEFDecoder       AMEFObject object1   AMEFDecoder decode arr true     The Protocol implementation has codecs for both C   and Java  the interesting part is it can retain object class representation in the form of name value pairs  I required a similar protocol in my last project  when i incidentally stumbled upon this protocol  i had actually modified the base library according to my requirements  Hope this helps you

User · Answer

Boost  serialization is a great option  but I ve encountered a new project  Cereal which I find much more elegant  I highly suggest investigating it

User · Answer

I m using the following template to implement serialization   template  lt class T  class Mode   void gt  struct Serializer       template  lt class OutputCharIterator gt      static void serializeImpl const T  amp object  OutputCharIterator  amp  amp it                object template serializeThis lt Mode gt  it              template  lt class InputCharIterator gt      static T deserializeImpl InputCharIterator  amp  amp it  InputCharIterator  amp  amp end                return T  template deserializeFrom lt Mode gt  it  end             template  lt class Mode   void  class T  class OutputCharIterator gt  void serialize const T  amp object  OutputCharIterator  amp  amp it        Serializer lt T  Mode gt   serializeImpl object  it      template  lt class T  class Mode   void  class InputCharIterator gt  T deserialize InputCharIterator  amp  amp it  InputCharIterator  amp  amp end        return Serializer lt T  Mode gt   deserializeImpl it  end      template  lt class Mode   void  class T  class InputCharIterator gt  void deserialize T  amp result  InputCharIterator  amp  amp it  InputCharIterator  amp  amp end        result   Serializer lt T  Mode gt   deserializeImpl it  end       Here T is the type you want to serialize Mode is a dummy type to differentiate between different kinds of serialization  eg  the same integer can be serialized as little endian  big endian  varint  etc   By default the Serializer delegates the task to the object being serialized  For built in types you should make a template specialization of the Serializer   Convenience function templates are also provided   For example little endian serialization of unsigned integers   struct LittleEndianMode       template  lt class T gt  struct Serializer lt      T  std  enable if t lt std  is unsigned lt T gt   value  LittleEndianMode gt  gt        template  lt class InputCharIterator gt      static T deserializeImpl InputCharIterator  amp  amp it  InputCharIterator  amp  amp end                T res   0           for  size t i   0  i  lt  sizeof T   i                          if  it    end  break              res    static cast lt T gt   it   lt  lt   CHAR BIT   i               it                       return res             template  lt class OutputCharIterator gt      static void serializeImpl T number  OutputCharIterator  amp  amp it                for  size t i   0  i  lt  sizeof T   i                           it    number  gt  gt   CHAR BIT   i    amp  0xFF              it                         Then to serialize   std  vector lt char gt  serialized  uint32 t val   42  serialize lt LittleEndianMode gt  val  std  back inserter serialized      To deserialize   uint32 t val  deserialize val  serialized begin    serialized end       Due to the abstract iterator logic  it should work with any iterator  eg  stream iterators   pointer  etc

User · Answer

C  14  C  17 recommended  boost prf  no macros no code to be explicitly written  demo

User · Answer

Sweet Persist is another one   It is possible to serialize to and from streams in XML  JSON  Lua  and binary formats

User · Answer

Boost is a good suggestion  But if you would like to roll your own  it s not so hard   Basically you just need a way to build up a graph of objects and then output them to some structured storage format  JSON  XML  YAML  whatever   Building up the graph is as simple as utilizing a marking recursive decent object algorithm and then outputting all the marked objects   I wrote an article describing a rudimentary  but still powerful  serialization system  You may find it interesting  Using SQLite as an On-disk File Format  Part 2

User · Answer

As far as  built-in  libraries go  the  lt  lt  and  gt  gt  have been reserved specifically for serialization   You should override  lt  lt  to output your object to some serialization context  usually an iostream  and  gt  gt  to read data back from that context  Each object is responsible for outputting its aggregated child objects   This method works fine so long as your object graph contains no cycles   If it does  then you will have to use a library to deal with those cycles

User · Answer

As far as  built-in  libraries go  the  lt  lt  and  gt  gt  have been reserved specifically for serialization   You should override  lt  lt  to output your object to some serialization context  usually an iostream  and  gt  gt  to read data back from that context  Each object is responsible for outputting its aggregated child objects   This method works fine so long as your object graph contains no cycles   If it does  then you will have to use a library to deal with those cycles

User · Answer

I recommend Google protocol buffers  I had the chance to test drive the library on a new project and it s remarkably easy to use  The library is heavily optimized for performance   Protobuf is different than other serialization solutions mentioned here in the sense that it does not serialize your objects  but rather generates code for objects that are serialization according to your specification

User · Answer

The Boost  serialization library handles this rather elegantly  I ve used it in several projects  There s an example program  showing how to use it  here   The only native way to do it is to use streams  That s essentially all the Boost  serialization library does  it extends the stream method by setting up a framework to write objects to a text-like format and read them from the same format    For built-in types  or your own types with operator lt  lt  and operator gt  gt  properly defined  that s fairly simple  see the C   FAQ for more information

User · Answer

I recommend using boost serialization as described by other posters  Here is a good detailed tutorial on how to use it which complements the boost tutorials nicely  http   www ocoudert com blog 2011 07 09 a-practical-guide-to-c-serialization

User · Answer

As far as  built-in  libraries go  the  lt  lt  and  gt  gt  have been reserved specifically for serialization   You should override  lt  lt  to output your object to some serialization context  usually an iostream  and  gt  gt  to read data back from that context  Each object is responsible for outputting its aggregated child objects   This method works fine so long as your object graph contains no cycles   If it does  then you will have to use a library to deal with those cycles

User · Answer

Here is a simple serializer library I knocked up  It s header only  c11 and has examples for serializing basic types  Here s one for a map to class   https   github com goblinhack simple-c-plus-plus-serializer   include  c plus plus serializer h   class Custom   public      int a      std  string b      std  vector c       friend std  ostream amp  operator lt  lt  std  ostream  amp out                                       Bits my                out  lt  lt  bits my t a   lt  lt  bits my t b   lt  lt  bits my t c           return  out              friend std  istream amp  operator gt  gt  std  istream  amp in                                       Bits my                in  gt  gt  bits my t a   gt  gt  bits my t b   gt  gt  bits my t c           return  in              friend std  ostream amp  operator lt  lt  std  ostream  amp out                                       class Custom  amp my                out  lt  lt   a    lt  lt  my a  lt  lt    b    lt  lt  my b           out  lt  lt    c     lt  lt  my c size    lt  lt    elems             for  auto v   my c                out  lt  lt  v  lt  lt                         out  lt  lt  std  endl           return  out             static void save map key string value custom  const std  string filename        std  cout  lt  lt   save to    lt  lt  filename  lt  lt  std  endl      std  ofstream out filename  std  ios  binary         std  map lt  std  string  class Custom  gt  m       auto c1   Custom        c1 a   1      c1 b    hello       std  initializer list L1     vec-elem1    vec-elem2        std  vector l1 L1       c1 c   l1       auto c2   Custom        c2 a   2      c2 b    there       std  initializer list L2     vec-elem3    vec-elem4        std  vector l2 L2       c2 c   l2       m insert std  make pair std  string  key1    c1        m insert std  make pair std  string  key2    c2         out  lt  lt  bits m      static void load map key string value custom  const std  string filename        std  cout  lt  lt   read from    lt  lt  filename  lt  lt  std  endl      std  ifstream in filename        std  map lt  std  string  class Custom  gt  m       in  gt  gt  bits m       std  cout  lt  lt  std  endl       std  cout  lt  lt   m      lt  lt  m size    lt  lt    list-elems      lt  lt  std  endl      for  auto i   m            std  cout  lt  lt           lt  lt  i first  lt  lt          lt  lt  i second            std  cout  lt  lt       lt  lt  std  endl     void map custom class example  void        std  cout  lt  lt   map key string  value class   lt  lt  std  endl      std  cout  lt  lt                                  lt  lt  std  endl      save map key string value custom std  string  map of custom class bin         load map key string value custom std  string  map of custom class bin         std  cout  lt  lt  std  endl      Output   map key string  value class                              save to map of custom class bin read from map of custom class bin  m   2 list-elems        key1    a 1 b hello c  2 elems  vec-elem1 vec-elem2      key2    a 2 b there c  2 elems  vec-elem3 vec-elem4

User · Answer

I recommend Google protocol buffers  I had the chance to test drive the library on a new project and it s remarkably easy to use  The library is heavily optimized for performance   Protobuf is different than other serialization solutions mentioned here in the sense that it does not serialize your objects  but rather generates code for objects that are serialization according to your specification

User · Answer

The Boost  serialization library handles this rather elegantly  I ve used it in several projects  There s an example program  showing how to use it  here   The only native way to do it is to use streams  That s essentially all the Boost  serialization library does  it extends the stream method by setting up a framework to write objects to a text-like format and read them from the same format    For built-in types  or your own types with operator lt  lt  and operator gt  gt  properly defined  that s fairly simple  see the C   FAQ for more information

User · Answer

Boost is a good suggestion  But if you would like to roll your own  it s not so hard   Basically you just need a way to build up a graph of objects and then output them to some structured storage format  JSON  XML  YAML  whatever   Building up the graph is as simple as utilizing a marking recursive decent object algorithm and then outputting all the marked objects   I wrote an article describing a rudimentary  but still powerful  serialization system  You may find it interesting  Using SQLite as an On-disk File Format  Part 2

User · Answer

The Boost  serialization library handles this rather elegantly  I ve used it in several projects  There s an example program  showing how to use it  here   The only native way to do it is to use streams  That s essentially all the Boost  serialization library does  it extends the stream method by setting up a framework to write objects to a text-like format and read them from the same format    For built-in types  or your own types with operator lt  lt  and operator gt  gt  properly defined  that s fairly simple  see the C   FAQ for more information

User · Answer

If you want simple and best performance and don t care about backward data compatibility  try HPS  it s lightweight  much faster than Boost  etc  and much easier to use than Protobuf  etc   Example   std  vector lt int gt  data  22  333  -4444    std  string serialized   hps  serialize to string data   auto parsed   hps  parse from string lt std  vector lt int gt  gt  serialized

User · Answer

I m using the following template to implement serialization   template  lt class T  class Mode   void gt  struct Serializer       template  lt class OutputCharIterator gt      static void serializeImpl const T  amp object  OutputCharIterator  amp  amp it                object template serializeThis lt Mode gt  it              template  lt class InputCharIterator gt      static T deserializeImpl InputCharIterator  amp  amp it  InputCharIterator  amp  amp end                return T  template deserializeFrom lt Mode gt  it  end             template  lt class Mode   void  class T  class OutputCharIterator gt  void serialize const T  amp object  OutputCharIterator  amp  amp it        Serializer lt T  Mode gt   serializeImpl object  it      template  lt class T  class Mode   void  class InputCharIterator gt  T deserialize InputCharIterator  amp  amp it  InputCharIterator  amp  amp end        return Serializer lt T  Mode gt   deserializeImpl it  end      template  lt class Mode   void  class T  class InputCharIterator gt  void deserialize T  amp result  InputCharIterator  amp  amp it  InputCharIterator  amp  amp end        result   Serializer lt T  Mode gt   deserializeImpl it  end       Here T is the type you want to serialize Mode is a dummy type to differentiate between different kinds of serialization  eg  the same integer can be serialized as little endian  big endian  varint  etc   By default the Serializer delegates the task to the object being serialized  For built in types you should make a template specialization of the Serializer   Convenience function templates are also provided   For example little endian serialization of unsigned integers   struct LittleEndianMode       template  lt class T gt  struct Serializer lt      T  std  enable if t lt std  is unsigned lt T gt   value  LittleEndianMode gt  gt        template  lt class InputCharIterator gt      static T deserializeImpl InputCharIterator  amp  amp it  InputCharIterator  amp  amp end                T res   0           for  size t i   0  i  lt  sizeof T   i                          if  it    end  break              res    static cast lt T gt   it   lt  lt   CHAR BIT   i               it                       return res             template  lt class OutputCharIterator gt      static void serializeImpl T number  OutputCharIterator  amp  amp it                for  size t i   0  i  lt  sizeof T   i                           it    number  gt  gt   CHAR BIT   i    amp  0xFF              it                         Then to serialize   std  vector lt char gt  serialized  uint32 t val   42  serialize lt LittleEndianMode gt  val  std  back inserter serialized      To deserialize   uint32 t val  deserialize val  serialized begin    serialized end       Due to the abstract iterator logic  it should work with any iterator  eg  stream iterators   pointer  etc

User · Answer

C  14  C  17 recommended  boost prf  no macros no code to be explicitly written  demo

User · Answer

The Boost  serialization library handles this rather elegantly  I ve used it in several projects  There s an example program  showing how to use it  here   The only native way to do it is to use streams  That s essentially all the Boost  serialization library does  it extends the stream method by setting up a framework to write objects to a text-like format and read them from the same format    For built-in types  or your own types with operator lt  lt  and operator gt  gt  properly defined  that s fairly simple  see the C   FAQ for more information

User · Answer

I recommend Google protocol buffers  I had the chance to test drive the library on a new project and it s remarkably easy to use  The library is heavily optimized for performance   Protobuf is different than other serialization solutions mentioned here in the sense that it does not serialize your objects  but rather generates code for objects that are serialization according to your specification

User · Answer

I realize this is an old post but it s one of the first that comes up when searching for c   serialization   I encourage anyone who has access to C  11 to take a look at cereal  a C  11 header only library for serialization that supports binary  JSON  and XML out of the box   cereal was designed to be easy to extend and use and has a similar syntax to Boost

User · Answer

I recommend using boost serialization as described by other posters  Here is a good detailed tutorial on how to use it which complements the boost tutorials nicely  http   www ocoudert com blog 2011 07 09 a-practical-guide-to-c-serialization

User · Answer

Boost is a good suggestion  But if you would like to roll your own  it s not so hard   Basically you just need a way to build up a graph of objects and then output them to some structured storage format  JSON  XML  YAML  whatever   Building up the graph is as simple as utilizing a marking recursive decent object algorithm and then outputting all the marked objects   I wrote an article describing a rudimentary  but still powerful  serialization system  You may find it interesting  Using SQLite as an On-disk File Format  Part 2

User · Answer

Boost is a good suggestion  But if you would like to roll your own  it s not so hard   Basically you just need a way to build up a graph of objects and then output them to some structured storage format  JSON  XML  YAML  whatever   Building up the graph is as simple as utilizing a marking recursive decent object algorithm and then outputting all the marked objects   I wrote an article describing a rudimentary  but still powerful  serialization system  You may find it interesting  Using SQLite as an On-disk File Format  Part 2

[c++] Is it possible to serialize and deserialize a class in C++?

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