R devel - Jul 2009 - A question on the serialization of a list vector

Hello,
I've (by somewhat understanding serialize.c) understood how a vector
of type numeric/char/raw/logical are serialized, assuming they have no
attributes (e.g no attributes(x)=NULL).

I assumed for lists, the content of the list is written first and then
the names attribute. However nested lists this is not always true. The
names are written but the header is not the same (for the innermost
list, 'names' is written, but not so thereafter)

I didn't quite understand WriteItem in serialize.c, could someone
explain what happens in the case of a list whose only attribute is
names and whose elements are vectors which are either a)char b)raw
c)logical d)numeric or d)lists of these

Thank you
Regards
Saptarshi