From: Boost-users [mailto:boost-users-bounces@lists.boost.org] On Behalf Of Clark Cianfarini Sent: 30 January 2015 14:45 To: boost-users@lists.boost.org Subject: Re: [Boost-users] [Serialization] XML: float format is scientific instead of human-readable since Boost 1.57 On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 4:04 AM, Frank Stähr <staehr@nue.tu-berlin.de> wrote: Here a reminder to my most important question: On 28.01.2015 at 18:07, Frank Stähr wrote: Not really, this just makes it harder to read or edit XMLs now. Is it possible for us to write the “old” XML format? So I guess no? The way our company chose to create human-readable XML is to serialize strings instead of doubles or floats. We used a stringstream with std::setprecision to get a certain number of decimal places. The number has a chance of being slightly different after de-serialization and pulling it out of the stringstream, just like the old serialization method. This is okay for us, as we need human-readable XML more than exact round tripping. Frank Stahr might also consider using 32-bit floats instead of double - if the precision of 6 decimal digits is enough. This could much reduce the max number of decimal digits from 17 to 9 for 32-bit float max_digits10 = 9 and the guaranteed digits10 is 6 for 64-bit double max_digits10 = 15 and the guaranteed digits10 is 17 HTH too. Paul --- Paul A. Bristow Prizet Farmhouse Kendal UK LA8 8AB +44 (0) 1539 561830