Serializing into the registry

Introduction

This example shows how to serialize CObject derived classes into the registry in binary form.

Most of MFC classes are derived from an abstract base class called CObject, either directly or indirectly. CObject provides the functionality of  serializing the object data members by ordering the data in a stream of bytes and then saving it into a file. By this you can make your objects persistent and reload the information after terminating the application and restarting it.

The information that is serialized is very much application specific. In order to serialize and object one must override the Serialize method from the base class and implement its own serialization code.

There are a few things that must be taken into consideration. In the following example I decided that instead of showing how to serialize some abstract class derived from CObject I will do it with a real MFC object class. Therefore I used Zafir Anjum's article on serializing a CTreeCtrl, published in CodeGuru which explains how to serialize this control. Once you have a serialize method the way to serializing into the registry is short.

CRegSerialize is a template class that can accept any CObject derived class as parameter. Using a template class insures that if your class is not serializable this error will be discovered in compile time and not during run time.

All you have to do is initalize a CRegSerialize class object with your CObject derived class as a parameter

//
CRegSerialize<CMyTreeCtrl> 	reg;
//

Then use the GetObject method to assign a pointer to the object you wish to serialize.

//
reg.GetObject(&m_TreeCtrl); 
//

Now use the write method to serialize the information into the registry giving the appropriate parameters

//
reg.Write(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,_T("Software\\RegSerializeDemo"),_T("Tree")) ;
//

To read from the registry do the exact proccess and use the Read method instead of the Write.

//
reg.Read(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,_T("Software\\RegSerializeDemo"),_T("Tree")) ;
//