> AFAICT if a data structure is created using combinations of unions, lists,
> arrays, etc. of built-in types or objects that, e.g. already have "write"
and
> "read" methods defined,  then in theory, a hypothetical compiler ought to
be
> able to generate such serialization functions automatically (IIRC Lisp and
> Scheme do this because of the simplicity of their type systems, but I may
be
> wrong here).
>
> Does O'Caml allow any type of short-cuts to avoid coding serialization
> manually?

Of course !
You can use either the Marshal module or the input_value / output_value to
read / write any data structures composed of basic ocaml types ( including
complexes & recursives structures - list arrays etc.).
Note that actually the marshaling process is unsafe ( your program can crash
if you're not reading the same type that you've written ). If you're using
native C data embedded into OCaml type, you can write your own (de)serialize
functions in C by using custom blocks.

PS : Object serialization is not available.

Nicolas Cannasse

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