OTIO's C++ persistance of clips (pointer data)

[ggarra13]

I am trying to understand how can I retain a clip (ie. otio::Item*) so that I can copy/paste a frame between changes to the whole timeline to implement undo/redo functionality with json_to_string() and json_from_string(). I don't understand exactly how SeriazableObject* and SeriazableObject::Retainer<> work.

The idea, in pseudo code, would be:

otio::Item* clip = (dynamic_cast*) track->children()[clipIndex]->clone();  // what/who holds the pointer? 

std::string undo = timeline->to_json_string();

// perform several damaging operations to timeline.

timeline->from_json_string(undo);

// Insert the clip again, but now clip* points to something else.  How can I hold a reference to it?
otio::algo::insert( clip, track, time );

[ggarra13]

Never mind. I figured it out.