cereal - A C++11 library for serialization
==========================================
<img src="https://uscilab.github.io/cereal/assets/img/cerealboxside.png" align="right"/><p>cereal is a header-only C++11 serialization library. cereal takes arbitrary data types and reversibly turns them into different representations, such as compact binary encodings, XML, or JSON. cereal was designed to be fast, light-weight, and easy to extend - it has no external dependencies and can be easily bundled with other code or used standalone.</p>
### cereal has great documentation
Looking for more information on how cereal works and its documentation? Visit [cereal's web page](https://USCiLab.github.io/cereal) to get the latest information.
### cereal is easy to use
Installation and use of of cereal is fully documented on the [main web page](https://USCiLab.github.io/cereal), but this is a quick and dirty version:
* Download cereal and place the headers somewhere your code can see them
* Write serialization functions for your custom types or use the built in support for the standard library cereal provides
* Use the serialization archives to load and save data
```cpp
#include <cereal/types/unordered_map.hpp>
#include <cereal/types/memory.hpp>
#include <cereal/archives/binary.hpp>
#include <fstream>
struct MyRecord
{
uint8_t x, y;
float z;
template <class Archive>
void serialize( Archive & ar )
{
ar( x, y, z );
}
};
struct SomeData
{
int32_t id;
std::shared_ptr<std::unordered_map<uint32_t, MyRecord>> data;
template <class Archive>
void save( Archive & ar ) const
{
ar( data );
}
template <class Archive>
void load( Archive & ar )
{
static int32_t idGen = 0;
id = idGen++;
ar( data );
}
};
int main()
{
std::ofstream os("out.cereal", std::ios::binary);
cereal::BinaryOutputArchive archive( os );
SomeData myData;
archive( myData );
return 0;
}
```
### cereal has a mailing list
Either get in touch over <a href="mailto:cerealcpp@googlegroups.com">email</a> or [on the web](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/cerealcpp).
## cereal has a permissive license
cereal is licensed under the [BSD license](http://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause).
## cereal build status
* [](https://github.com/USCiLab/cereal/actions/workflows/ci.yml)
* [](https://github.com/USCiLab/cereal/actions/workflows/ci-macos.yml)
* [](https://ci.appveyor.com/project/AzothAmmo/cereal/branch/master)
---
Were you looking for the Haskell cereal? Go <a href="https://github.com/GaloisInc/cereal">here</a>.