I upgraded from boost 1.45 to 1.48 and there are some breaking changes related to reverse_graph The main problem that I encounter is that boost::edge(u ,v, graph) returns a edge_descriptor to the graph that underlies reverse_graph, rather than reverse_graph itself . The following therefore does not compile: template<typename Graph> void foo(Graph& graph) { boost::graph_traits<Graph>::edge_descriptor e = boost::edge(0, 1, graph).first; } int main() { boost::adjacency_list<boost::vecS, boost::vecS, boost::bidirectionalS> graph(2); foo(graph); // this line compiles foo(boost::make_reverse_graph(graph)); // this line does not compile } Do you have suggestions how to rewrite foo(Graph& graph) in order to generically work for both plain and reversed graphs? For now I have rewritten the boost::edge function in reverse_graph.hpp to return a pair<reverse_graph_edge_descriptor, bool> but that does not seem right. Thanks, Alex