b8bf9f0c   
   From: firstname.dot.lastname@googlemail.com   
      
   On Wed, 22 May 2013 22:38:23 -0700, Joshua Maurice wrote:   
      
   > Actually, no. Suppose you ask for an array of double:   
   >     new double[7];   
   > It's my understanding that a lot of heap implementations will not   
   > return you /exactly/ an array of 7 doubles. It'll actually return to   
   > you an array of 8 doubles. Nowhere will it track that it allocated   
   > exactly 7.  Instead, it keeps track that it gave you 8 or less, and   
   > it doesn't care beyond that. It's actually quite possible for arrays   
   > of POD types to not contain the actual size at all. It's sometimes   
   > more efficient to not contain the exact size and instead round up to   
   > multiples of 2 to use a small number of separate pools.   
      
   Presumably, though that would not matter for these purposes. In this   
   case, the serialiser would write out a bit more data than is required,   
   and then load it in on the other end. That data would contain junk   
   which would be dutifully saved and reloaded, but it wouldn't then be   
   used by the program.   
      
   Of course, (de)serialising junk is a waste of bandwidth and storage,   
   so it wouldn't be ideal, but I don't see that it would be too much of   
   a problem otherwise.   
      
      
   -Ed   
      
      
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