How to (de)/serialise a third-party library type?

[Lefteris Kotsonis]

Is there a way to apply serialisation to a type that is provided by a third-party library (i.e. shouldn't be able to modify the class' code) and has non-default constructor?

I have searched the documentation, stack overflow and google group but haven't been able to find something that doesn't solve this with `friend`.

An example class would be:

class ThirdPartyClass

{

public:

    ThirdPartyClass(SomeType a, SomeType b);

     SomeType getA() const;

     SomeType getB() const;

private:

    SomeType a;

    SomeType b;

};

Again, the constraint here is to avoid forking the third party library to befriend cereal, i.e. it should be done with external functions if I understand correctly.

Thanks in advance!

[Erich Keane]

Without a default constructor, I don't think you can use the normal serialization method, see: "Default Constructor" section at the bottom of this: https://uscilab.github.io/cereal/serialization_functions.html

You should be able to use smart-pointers to these types via the mechanism described here: https://uscilab.github.io/cereal/pointers

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[Alessio M]

See LoadAndConstruct

template<class T>
struct cereal::LoadAndConstruct< T >

A class that allows cereal to load smart pointers to types that have no default constructor.