Hello there! I'm about to explore the power of boost::bind, but I am still a beginner. Maybe the question is rather stupid, but the following code does not compile and I do not understand why: typedef std::vector<std::size_t> data_t; data_t dataVec; ... populate dataVec ... std::size_t shiftIndex = 3; boost::function<std::size_t& (std::size_t)> shiftedData = boost::bind(&data_t::at, &dataVec, _1 - shiftIndex); The error message is something like /home/sweber/graphpkg/libs/boost/boost/function/function_template.hpp:119: error: invalid initialization of reference of type 'size_t&' from expression of type 'const unsigned int' My system is a debian sarge with a g++-3.3 and boost 1.33.1. What I'm trying to do is to shift the index of the data-vector such that index 3 would address the first element. Thanks for any help. Greetings, Sebastian Weber