How to serialize an object to send over network

Question

I\'m trying to serialize objects to send over network through a socket using only STL. I\'m not finding a way to keep objects\' structure to be deserialized in the other host. I

Answer 1

I got it!

I used strinstream to serialize objects and I sent it as a message using the stringstream's method str() and so string's c_str().

Look.

class Object {
public:
int a;
string b;

void methodSample1 ();
void methosSample2 ();

friend ostream& operator<< (ostream& out, Object& object) {
out << object.a << " " << object.b;   //The space (" ") is necessari for separete elements
return out;
}

friend istream& operator>> (istream& in, Object& object) {
in >> object.a;
in >> object.b;
return in;
}
};

/* Server side */
int main () {
Object o;
stringstream ss;
o.a = 1;
o.b = 2;
ss << o;    //serialize

write (socket, ss.str().c_str(), 20); //send - the buffer size must be adjusted, it's a sample
}

/* Client side */
int main () {
Object o2;
stringstream ss2;
char buffer[20];
string temp;

read (socket, buffer, 20);  //receive
temp.assign(buffer);
ss << temp;
ss >> o2;   //unserialize
}

I'm not sure if is necessary convert to string before to serialize (ss << o), maybe is possible directly from char.