Reading VC++ CArchive Binary Format (or Java reading (CObArray))

Question

Is there any clear documentation on the binary formats used to serialize the various MFC data structures? I've been able to view some of my own classes in a hex editor and use Java's ByteBuffer class to read them in (with automatic endianness conversions, etc).

However, I am currently running into issues while trying to bring over the CObArray data, as there seems to be a rather large header that is opaque to me, and it is unclear how it is persisting object type information.

Is there a set of online documentation that would be helpful for this? Or some sample Java code from someone that has dealt with this in the past?

Answer 1

Since MFC ships with source code I would create a test MFC application that serializes a CObArray and step through the serialization code. This should give you all the information you need.

Answer 2

I agree with jmatthias: use the MFC source code.

There's also this page on MSDN that may be useful.