Serialize and send a data structure using Boost?

Question

I have a data structure that looks like this:

typedef struct
{
  unsigned short m_short1;
  unsigned short m_short2;
  unsigned char m_character;
} MyDataType;
         


        

Answer 1

EDIT: I take back my answer below, what I proposed does have the time and space advantages over the stringstream solution but the asio::stream API is lacking some important functionality that will be needed in a long run (e.g. timed interruption).

---

My original answer:

Use streams from boost::asio, it has time and space advantages over writing it into std::stringstreams and then sending it in one go. Here is how:

Client code:

boost::asio::ip::tcp::iostream stream("localhost", "3000");

if (!stream)
  throw std::runtime_error("can't connect");

Server code:

boost::asio::io_service ios;
boost::asio::ip::tcp::endpoint endpoint
  = boost::asio::ip::tcp::endpoint(ip::tcp::v4(), 3000);
boost::asio::ip::tcp::acceptor acceptor(ios, endpoint);
boost::asio::ip::tcp::iostream stream;

// Your program stops here until client connects.
acceptor.accept(*stream.rdbuf()); 

And then, after you are connected with either client or server stream just do:

MyDataType obj;

// Send the object.
boost::archive::text_oarchive archive(stream);
archive << obj;

// Or receive it.
boost::archive::text_iarchive archive(stream);
archive >> obj;

You of course need to add the 'serialize' function into your MyDataType as Tymek wrote in his answer.