I am interested to use JSON for storing the initial parameters for an application written in C++. Currently I am testing the nlohmann/json library for read/write data from/to JSON files.

I have the following class structure:

class Layer {
public:
    std::string name;
    LayerType type;
    ...
};

class Network {
public:
    std::string name;
    std::vector<Layer> layers;
    ...
};

and the serialize/deserialize methods are here:

void to_json(json& j, const Layer& layer) {
    j = json{
            {"name", layer.name},
            {"type", layer.type}
    };
}
void from_json(const json& j, Layer& layer) {
    j.at("name").get_to(layer.name);
    j.at("type").get_to(layer.type);
}

void to_json(json& j, const Network& network) {
    j = json{
        {"name", network.name},
        {"layers", network.layers}
    };
}
void from_json(const json& j, Network& network) {
    j.at("name").get_to(network.name);
    j.at("layers").get_to(network.layers);
}

So, up to here, these classes are fine and can be used to read and write from and to JSON.

And now comes the question. What if I decide to use addresses of layers in the Network class?

class Network {
public:
    std::vector<Layer*> layers;
    ...
};

How should I rewrite the serialize/deserialize methods? Where can I find a similar example?

SK