Reinterpret Cast to char* for Serialization?

Some of my coursework material suggests using a reinterpret cast:

Code:

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outfile.write(reinterpret_cast <char*> (&Object_name), sizeof (Object_type) );

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To serialize an object. Is this as bad of an idea as I think it is?

Quote:

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Is this as bad of an idea as I think it is?

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Absolutely. How well would that work for this object:

Code:

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class WontSerialize
{
    WontSerialize(void) { pBuffer = new char[100]; }
    char* pBuffer;
};

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It is way better to let objects serialize themselves. For instance, it is common to serialize objects as XML these days, so you could make your class have a ToXML() function.

there exist bosst::serialisation and it is able to serialize to xml, binary and text.

reinterpret_cast is normally a bad idea.