serialization library for C++ This package forms part of the Boost C++ Libraries collection, containing the following functionalities: * proper restoration of pointers to shared data * serialization of STL containers and other commonly used templates * data portability - streams of bytes created on one platform should be readable on any other * archive interface must be rich enough to permit the creation of an archive that presents serialized data as XML in a useful manner Here, "serialization" means the reversible deconstruction of an arbitrary set of C++ data structures to a sequence of bytes. archive: to refer to a specific rendering of this stream of bytes.