Boost Serialization with (More Than) Two Compilation Units

A Boost/Serialization demo for C++ classes implemented from several compilation units (shared libraries):

• Author: F.Mauger
• Affiliation: Université de Caen Normandie, LPC Caen (CNRS/IN2P3)
• Copyright : Creative Commons BY-NC-SA (this README file and C++ code)
• Date: 2016-05-25
• Update: 2017-05-02
• Keywords: Boost,Serialization,Compilation units

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Description
• Contents of the demo
• Requirements
• Building the demo

Introduction

This demo has been created as a test bench of some advanced usage of the Boost Serialization Library on some systems of interest (mostly computers running modern Linux used for computing, simulation and data analysis for experimental physics). It is provided as is, first for my personal usage and experimentation but also in the hope it could help someone else to understand and setup Boost based serialization features in his/her own code.

Description

This set of sample C++ files illustrates how to implement serialization functionalities, through the Boost/Serialization library, in several (simple) toy classes defined from three shared libraries with dependency relationship. The libraries instantiate dedicated templatized code for the serialization of the provided classes (Boost XML/txt archives), as well as registration (export) mechanism for polymorphic classes (see the Boost/Serialization documentation for details).

Several use cases are considered:

1. Plain serialization of simple classes:

Simple class xy::Y with an attribute of the class xy::X in the first library (libXY). Class z::Z in the second library (libZ) with a class xy::X attribute and a class xy::Y attribute from the first library (libXY).

    +-----------------+
    |      xy::X      |
    +-----------------+
    | val : uint32_t  |
    +-----------------+

    +-----------------+
    |      xy::Y      |
    +-----------------+
    | x : xy::X       |
    +-----------------+
                        First shared lib (libXY)
    --------------------------------------------
                        Second shared lib (libZ)
    +-----------------+
    |      z::Z       |
    +-----------------+
    | y : xy::Y       |
    | x : xy::X       |
    +-----------------+

2. Serialization of polymorphic classes through pointer to a base class:

   Class xy::B inherited from polymorphic class xy::A in the first library (libXY); class z::C in the second library (libZ) inherited from class xy::B from the first library, class plugin::P in the third library (libPlugin) inherited from class xy::A from the first library.

    +-----------------+
    |    /xy::A/      |
    +-----------------+
    | val : uint32_t  |
    +-----------------+
    | /to_string/     |
    +-----------------+
            ^     ^
inheritance |     |
            |     +--------------------------------+
            |                                      |
    +-----------------+                            |
    |    /xy::B/      |                            |
    +-----------------+                            |
    | val2 : uint32_t |                            |
    +-----------------+                            |
    | /to_string/     |                            |
    +-----------------+                            |
            ^                                      |
            |           First shared lib (libXY)   |
    --------|-----------------------------------   |
            |           Second shared lib (libZ)   |
inheritance |                                      |
    +-----------------+                            |
    |    /z::C/       |                            |
    +-----------------+                            |
    | val3 : uint32_t |                            |
    +-----------------+                            |
    | /to_string/     |                            |
    +-----------------+                            |
                                                   |
            +--------------------------------------+
    --------|-----------------------------------
            |       Third shared lib (libPlugin)
inheritance |
    +-----------------+
    |    plugin::P    |
    +-----------------+
    | val2 : uint32_t |
    +-----------------+

3. Serialization of polymorphic objects only known from a plugin library, dynamically loaded at runtime from a compilation unit (executable) that does not know about the class(es) of the serialized objects.

Various test programs are provided to test (de)serialization of the classes. We use the official XML Boost archive format. Optionally the use of EOS portable binary archives (version 5.1) can be activated.

Contents of the demo

Shared library libXY(.so)

The libXY.so (namespace xy) shared library contains the definitions of serializable classes xy::X, xy::Y, xy::A and xy::B as well as instantiated serialization code and registration code (for class xy::B) with regards of Boost XML and text archives.

Classes

• Class xy::X : X.hpp, X.cpp, X-serial.hpp (implementation of the templatized serialization method).
• Class xy::Y with an attribute of type xy::X: Y.hpp, Y.cpp, Y-serial.hpp (implementation of the templatized serialization method).
• Class xy::A (polymorphic class) : A.hpp, A.cpp, A-serial.hpp (implementation of the templatized serialization method).
• Class xy::B (inherited from xy::A) : B.hpp (with export key), B.cpp, B-serial.hpp (implementation of the templatized serialization method).
• Instantiation of serialization code for classes xy::X, xy::Y, xy::A, xy::B and class xy::B registration (export): serial_xy_ab.cpp.
• Abstract class xy::BasePlugin : base class for object factory classes. Objects instantiated from such factories must inherit the xy::A class.
• Class xy::plugin_deck : provide a singleton which points to an object factory instance. Objects instantiated from such factories inherit the xy::A class.

Test programs

• XY/testing/test_X.cxx : serialization of class xy::X.
• XY/testing/test_Y.cxx : serialization of class xy::Y.
• XY/testing/test_AB.cxx : serialization of pointers to objects (xy::A or xy::B) inherited from polymorphic class xy::A.

Shared library libZ(.so)

The libZ.so (namespace z) shared library contains the definitions of serializable classes z::Z and z::C as well as instantiated serialization code and registration code (for class z::C) with regards of Boost XML and text archives. The libZ.so DLL is explicitely linked to the libXY.so DLL.

Classes

• Class z::Z with an attribute of type xy::Y and an attribute of type xy::X : Z.hpp, Z.cpp, Z-serial.hpp.
• Class z::C (inherited from xy::B) : C.hpp (with export key), C.cpp, C-serial.hpp.
• Instantiation of serialization code for classes z::Z, z::C, and class z::C registration (export): serial_z_c.cpp.

Test programs

• Z/testing/test_Z.cxx : serialization of class z::Z.
• Z/testing/test_C.cxx : serialization of pointers to objects (xy::A, xy::B or z::C) inherited from polymorphic class xy::A.

Shared library libPlugin(.so)

The libPlugin.so (namespace plugin) shared library contains the definitions of serializable class plugin::P as well as instantiated serialization and registration code (for class plugin::P) with regards of Boost XML and text archives. The libPlugin.so DLL is explicitely linked to the libZ.so DLL. At loading, the libPlugin.so DLL instantiates a specific object factory and register it in the libXY.so DLL. From this factory, it is then possible to randomly instantiate objects of various types (xy::A, xy::B,z::C or plugin::P) from a compilation unit which is only linked to the libXY.so DLL and from which the libPlugin.so DLL has been dynamically loaded.

Classes

• Class plugin::P (inherited from xy::A) : P.hpp (with export key), P.cpp, P-serial.hpp.
• Instantiation of serialization code for classes plugin::P and class registration (export): serial_plugin_p.cpp.
• Class plugin::Plugin : object factory class. Objects of types xy::A, xy::B,z::C or plugin::P are randomly instantiated from this factory.
• Class plugin::init_lib : provide a singleton for initialization of the library at loading. A plugin::Plugin instance is automatically registered in the xy:plugin_deck singleton in the libXY.so DLL.

Test programs

• Plugin/testing/test_Plugin.cxx : use a factory for random instantiation of several xy::A, xy::B, z::C or plugin::P objects and serialization through a vector of shared pointers. The executable is explicitely linked to the libPlugin.so DLL and thus the libZ.so and libXY.so DLLs..
• Plugin/testing/test_Plugin_2.cxx : use a factory for random instantiation of xy::A, xy::B, z::C and plugin::P objects and serialization through a vector of shared pointers. The executable is only explicitely linked to the libXY.so DLL. The libPlugin.so DLL is loaded dynamically by the executable at runtime which makes possible the serialization of random objects of type z::C and plugin::P thanks to export code implemented in both libZ.so and libPlugin.so DLLs.

Requirements

This demo has been tested under Linux but should work on any other OS with a descent C++ compiler and Boost/Serialization installed on the system.

A CMake script is provided to build the full chain of software on Linux (DLLs and test executable).

These examples have been successfully tested on Linux Ubuntu 16.04 with :

* gcc 5.4.0
* Boost/Serialization library versions 1.58 (system installation on ``/usr``) and 1.60.
* CMake 3.5.1

Building the demo

The demo uses CMake (>= 3.3) as its build system.

Options

The demo supports two optional parameters:

• BOOST_ROOT : The path where the Boost libraries are installed. For a system installation on Linux, this should be /usr and automatically found by CMake.

  Example: to target a specific Boost installation:

$ cmake ... -DBOOST_ROOT=/opt/sw/Boost/install-1.60 ...

• BSTCUD_WITH_EOS : This flag enables support and test of the EOS Portable Binary Archives (version 5.1, by Christian Pfligersdorffer). By default it is inhibited.

  Example:

$ cmake ... -DBSTCUD_WITH_EOS=ON ...

Configure and build

1. from the source directory, you should first create a build directory and cd in it:

$ mkdir _build.d
$ cd _build.d

2. then configure and build the demo:

$ cmake [-DBOOST_ROOT=/path/to/boost/installation] [-DBSTCUD_WITH_EOS=ON] ..
$ make
$ ls XY/ Z/ Plugin/

By default, the CMake find_package(Boost ...) function will search for a system installation of the Boost library from the /usr directory. This can be changed with the -DBOOST_ROOT=... variable.

3. finally run the test programs:

$ make test