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Saving and Loading

Saving and loading configurations is straightforward. All one needs to do is to invoke the serialization of a PiiEngine instance. Serialization is a process in which the members of a class instance are recursively marhalled and written to an I/O device. In Ydin, serialization happens through archives, objects that write and read primitive data types in some specific format. Currently, there are two actual implementations, one for plain text and another for binary data. The choice between these formats is left to the user. Binary format is faster to read and write, but it is not as portable as plain text, and non-readable to a human. Plain text is not very readable, either, but can be edited with a text editor. It is a bit slower to read and write, but often results in smaller files.

To save a configuration, one needs to open an I/O device, create an archive that writes data to the device and write the data. Here is how: 

 QFile file("file.cft");
 file.open(QIODevice::WriteOnly);
 PiiGenericTextOutputArchive ar(&file);
 ar << engine;

It is possible to store any serializable data in a similar manner. See documentation chapter on serialiation for a thorough explanation. Reading a configuration is just as simple: 

 QFile file("file.cft");
 file.open(QIODevice::ReadOnly);
 PiiGenericTextInputArchive ar(&file);
 ar >> engine;

Any data written into an archive can be read back in the same order it was written.

All bundled operations can be saved and restored with the shown technique. If you need to serialize your custom operations, they need to be made serializable. Placing them into a plug-in is the easiest way (see Creating Plug-ins), but making them serializable "manually" is not hard either (see Serialization library).

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