[DGD]serialisation/deserialisation of mixed data.

[Felix A. Croes]

balduin at uni-paderborn.de wrote:

> I currently have the Problem, that I want to serialize and
> deserialize Data of type mixed. This is easy as long as I 
> use basic dgd types. (int, string, float, array, mapping)
> When dealing with objects I stumble into problems. As I have
> persistent objects in a mysql database (If there is interest
> in the dgd-patches for this contact me), each object has
> it's uniqe ID. The straight forward idea with serialisation
> is to use this ID and mark it with a special character lets
> say #42 to indicate persistent database object 42. This works
> fine in both directions as long as we don't have recursive
> Datastructures e.g. complex inventory structures. As I have
> a hierarchic room structure (rooms containing rooms in their
> inventory) loading the root room, would imply loading the
> complete mud at once. To avoid this I decided to postpone
> loading the true object until a function is called, and want 
> to store a marker denoting the Object Number. I currently
> use an array ({ int ObID, object Ob }), and patched call_other
> to call the second (if exists) or fetch it from the 
> (mysql database) otherwise and execute afterwards. (ugly I know)
> With this serialisation becomes a problem. Since the complete
> array denotes the object. My only idea is to use very ugly
> heuristics to serialize ({ 42, ob-pointer }) to #42. My question
> is: does anybody out there have some smart ideas, how to make
> this type-save ? I think this is the very first situation I 
> really miss typedef and struct in dgd.

I have read the above several times now, but I'm still not even
sure what the question is.  Could you rephrase it in somewhat
more digestable paragraphs?

Regards,
Dworkin

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