In RBEvaluation::read_offline_data_from_files and RBEvaluation::write_offline_data_to_files), we read/write from/to a bunch of small Xdr files. I've always thought this is pretty messy and I've wanted to find a better approach.
I think a better approach would be to use the Cap'n Proto <https://capnproto.org/> serialization library. I've made a start on implementing this here: https://github.com/dknez/libmesh/tree/rb_capnproto But before I go further with the implementation, I'd like to run this by the list to confirm that this change can be incorporated into libMesh. Some comments: - Cap'n Proto requires C++11. My plan would be to make Cap'n Proto an optional package, and to keep the current reduced basis read/write code if C++11 and Cap'n Proto aren't available. - We define a "schema" for the serialization format, e.g. see here: https://github.com/dknez/libmesh/blob/rb_capnproto/include/reduced_basis/rb_data.capnp Cap'n Proto then provides a tool to compile the schema into C++ code, which yields these files: https://github.com/dknez/libmesh/blob/rb_capnproto/include/reduced_basis/rb_data.capnp.h https://github.com/dknez/libmesh/blob/rb_capnproto/src/reduced_basis/rb_data.capnp.C So there is a question of what to include in the libMesh source tree (just the schema file, or the generated code as well). - Cap'n Proto provides a tool for "decoding" binary data: https://capnproto.org/capnp-tool.html This is useful for debugging, i.e. we can get an ASCII dump of the serialized data by using the "capnp decode" command. - The serialization code that I've written so far uses "auto" a lot, e.g. see here: https://github.com/dknez/libmesh/blob/rb_capnproto/src/reduced_basis/rb_data_serialization.C This is convenient since otherwise we would have to write out a lot of Cap'n Proto type names in the code. Using auto relies on C++11, but this seems OK to me since we have to have C++11 if we're using Cap'n Proto (and we would if-def out this code if we didn't configure with Cap'n Proto). Does this seem reasonable, or should I avoid "auto" everywhere? Thanks, David
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