Custom archive type

[Vadim]

Hi,

I would like implement serialization of raw pointers in Cereal (in some restricted cases).   I am porting this code from another library, so I know how to implement it, however I am not sure how to fit it into Cereal API.

What I've tried so far:

1. Derived a class from from BinaryOutputArchive, which tracks extra data needed to serialize pointers.  It also exposes serializePointer and deserializePointer methods.

2. Defined load/save functions for pointers.

(code is attached)

Unfortunately, this fails to compile:

cereal_test.cpp:46:13: error: 'class cereal::BinaryOutputArchive' has no member named 'serializePointer'; did you mean 'serializeDeferments'?
     archive.serializePointer(bar.foo);

Looks like references to my class are getting downcast to BinaryOutputArchive?   Is there something else I need to do in order to register a new archive type?

The other issue I am hitting (if I don't invoke serializePointer() and try to use load/save specializations for pointers) is that Cereal seems to be asserting that raw pointers are not serialized:

common.hpp:114:5: error: static assertion failed: Cereal does not support serializing raw pointers - please use a smart pointer

Can this assert be suppressed without modifying Cereal's source?   I can continue using custom methods of course, but it would be nice if users didn't need to special-case pointers when writing serialize() for their data types.

Thanks!